Oral Arguments to Begin on Unsealing Epstein’s Court Documents
Oral arguments about whether to unseal documents from a past court case involving accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein will begin Wednesday, March 6, at the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City.
The case, Giuffre v. Maxwell, was a defamation lawsuit brought by one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre. The suit was settled in May 2017, but unsealing related court records could introduce volumes of new information regarding Epstein’s alleged activities, and those of his powerful co-participants.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, has been accused of molesting dozens of underage girls at his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion and his 72-acre private island estate in the Caribbean. The Department of Justice is currently investigating a 2007 plea deal that allowed him to only serve 13 months in a private area of a Palm Beach County jail, and work unsupervised at his downtown West Palm Beach office 12-hours a day, six days a week, during that period.
In 2015, Giuffre sued Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, after Maxwell publicly challenged her claims of abuse.
According to an August 2017 lower court ruling, Giuffre alleged that she was a “victim of sexual trafficking and abuse while she was a minor child,” and that Maxwell helped facilitate the abuse, which allegedly occurred over a decade at numerous locations “around the world,” and “with prominent and politically powerful men.”
The lawsuit asserted that Giuffre was subjected to “public ridicule, contempt and disgrace” when Maxwell publicly denied her allegations.
The two-year dispute involved what Judge Robert Sweet of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York called “a lengthy and tumultuous discovery process” with “extreme sensitivities and privacy interests.” As a result, he placed a protective order on discovery documents and other items spanning 18 hearings and 15 related decisions.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/oral-arguments-to-begin-on-unsealing-epsteins-court-documents_2824549.html