1 of 3 | Ghislaine Maxwell seen in a 2006 photograph that was made public Monday in a trove of documents unsealed by court order. The documents are the fourth tranche to be released in a now-settled 2015 civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre who accused Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a minor and Maxwell of defaming her. Photo courtesy of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
Jan. 9 (UPI) — A fourth batch of court documents connected to disgraced financier and sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein has been released.
The tranche of 17 documents totaling more than 300 pages was released Monday and adds to the hundreds of documents that have been unsealed since the first batch dropped last week.
The documents are from a 2015 civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre who accused Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a minor and Ghislaine Maxwell, the late New York billionaire’s one-time girlfriend and associate, of defaming her. The lawsuit was settled in 2017.
The documents, which are being unsealed under a Dec. 18 court order, have contained hundreds of names of people, including accusers, Epstein associates and politicians, as well as information that has been mostly made public before.
Among the documents unsealed Monday include photographs provided by Epstein accuser Sarah Ransome who testified in the case. The images are of Epstein, Maxwell and others, including young women, on Epstein’s Little St. James Island in the mid-200s.
It also includes testimony from Ransome where she detailed aspects of Epstein’s sexual trafficking scheme.
One set of documents also includes emails Ransome exchanged with a reporter in which she claimed a friend of hers had sex with several high-profile people as part of Epstein’s scheme, and which were recorded.
Among those she implicated were former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and British business magnate Richard Branson.
Ransome would admit to The New Yorker in 2019 to fabricating that such tapes existed in order to bring attention to Epstein.
In the documents disclosed Monday is an email that Ransome sent the reporter stating: “I would like to retract everything I have said to you and walk away from this.”
A Virgin Group spokesperson on Monday pointed to The New Yorker article in rejecting the accusations involving Branson, the company’s founder.
“We can confirm that Sarah Ransome’s claims are baseless and unfounded,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in Epstein’s sex trafficking conspiracy in June of 2022.
Epstein died by suicide in August of 2019 as he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.