From Bill Clinton’s alleged proclivities, to Epstein pushing a teenager to get emancipated, to Prince Andrew’s puppet, here’s what we learned from the newly released unredacted documents
Hundreds of pages of sealed records related to Jeffrey Epstein were made public on Wednesday and Thursday, revealing previously unknown details about the late accused sex trafficker who called some of the world’s most wealthy and influential people his friends, from Bill Clinton to Prince Andrew.
The release comes after a judge’s December ruling that the documents, which until Wednesday had been redacted, should no longer be concealed from the public. More than 200 documents were on that list, though only about 60 have been released to the public so far. Previously, the documents had been part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 civil case against Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022 and is currently serving a 20-year sentence, though she is appealing; Epstein was facing 45 years in prison for his alleged crimes, but he was found hanged in his Manhattan prison cell in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.)
After the announcement in December, many speculated as to what would be found in the unsealed documents — what we got was mostly known names, though some new, unsettling allegations. Here are some of the biggest bombshells we learned:
Epstein asked a teenage girl to get emancipated and live with him
One of the documents released Thursday was a deposition given by an anonymous accuser, who said Epstein sexually abused her when she was between 15 and 17 years old. At one point, while she was still underage, Epstein asked her to live with him. “He wanted me to be emancipated,” she said.
The abuse — which so many other accusers have testified was typical — began under the pretense of a massage. She said Epstein “took [her] clothes off without [her] consent” the first time they met. “I just was there, and all of a sudden something horrible happened to me,” she said.
Maxwell’s attorneys accused a journalist of urging Giuffre to lie about being sexually abused to sell a memoir
In denying the allegations against her and Epstein, Maxwell has repeatedly smeared Giuffre, calling her an “absolute total liar” and “an exaggerator, a fantasist and absolutely true terrible person” in court depositions.
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In documents released Thursday, Maxwell’s attorneys pushed to subpoena journalist Sharon Churcher, who’d written about Giuffre’s story in the Daily Mail. The defense team accused Churcher of helping Giuffre sensationalize or even fabricate details of her abuse allegations in order to boost sales of a memoir she was working on. “Not only is Churcher aware that the allegations were false, she helped Plaintiff concoct the stories,” the defense wrote.
Giuffre alleged in an email that Clinton “threatened” Vanity Fair over Epstein coverage (but it’s not clear if that actually happened)
It’s no secret that Bill Clinton was friends with Epstein for years, and he was widely speculated to be one of the high-profile figures who would appear in the documents.
In an email to Churcher that appears in court filings, Giuffre wrote that Clinton once walked into the Vanity Fair office “and threatened them not to write sex-trafficking articles about his good friend J.E.”
The email doesn’t provide any further details on the alleged incident, and there is no evidence it ever actually occurred. It’s unclear whether the claim was meant to be taken seriously, or if it might have been an exaggeration made in a joking matter. (We ran the story by Vicky Ward, a journalist who has alleged that Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter killed her 2003 story about Epstein’s alleged crimes after being pressured by Epstein, a claim he’s strongly denied. When asked about the Clinton allegation, she told us she “never heard that.”)
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Carter also denied the incident had taken place, telling The Telegraph it “categorically did not happen.” (A spokesperson for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Jeffrey Epstein allegedly said Bill Clinton “likes them young”
There were other damning rumors about the former president. In a transcript of a deposition given by Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, she said Epstein once told her that Clinton “likes them young, referring to girls.”
Clinton is not accused of any misconduct in the unsealed documents. In a statement after Epstein’s arrest in 2019, Clinton said he had not spoken to Epstein in “well over a decade” and had known “nothing about the terrible crimes” of which his former friend stood accused. He acknowledged having flown on Epstein’s private plane on four occasions, but denied ever visiting his private island. (A spokesperson for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.)
Prince Andrew and his puppet
In February 2022, Prince Andrew reached a settlement with Giuffre over accusations that he’d sexually abused her numerous times when she was still a minor. He denied the allegations, but was officially stripped of his royal and military titles in the midst of the legal proceedings against him.
The newly unsealed documents contain details about the former British royal’s alleged abuse. In her deposition, Sjoberg said she and Giuffre once met Prince Andrew at Epstein’s home, and that Maxwell brought out a puppet that looked like the royal. “There was a little tag on the puppet that said ‘Prince Andrew’ on it, and that’s when I knew who he was,” Sjoberg testified.
And then out came the camera. “They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap, and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo,” Sjoberg said. (Prince Andrew’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Dershowitz was allegedly a regular
Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s former attorney who helped him clinch the 2008 “sweetheart deal” in which he avoided prosecution for sex crimes against minors, also plays a big role in the unsealed documents.
According to testimony from Epstein’s former household staff, Dershowitz visited Epstein’s Florida home “very often,” allegedly going there by himself and spending time “in the presence of young girls.” They also said he would get massages there — a tactic Epstein frequently employed in initiating his alleged sexual abuse.
In an email to Rolling Stone, Dershowitz said that he and his wife had “a single massage in the 1990s with a professional massage therapist” and that he “never saw a young girl in Epstein’s presence.” In a rambling livestream Thursday, he bemoaned “that people can make false accusations [in legal filings] with impunity without fear of being sued.”
Stolen passports and “kissing games”
The abuse described in the court filings shows just how far Epstein and Maxwell allegedly went to control the young women in their orbit. Rinaldo Rizzo — a former household manager for Epstein’s billionaire friends Glenn and Eva Dubin — testified that Maxwell once threatened a “terrified” 15-year-old and “confiscated her passport to try to make her have sex with Epstein” while on his private island.
Rizzo also said Maxwell had instructed a group of eleven girls as young as 14 to “play a ‘kissing game’ with and for” Epstein.
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Update Jan 4, 10 a.m.: This story now includes comment from Alan Dershowitz. A previous version of this story stated Epstein’s “sweetheart” deal was made in 2006. It was 2008.
Update Jan 5, 1 a.m.: This story now includes details from the documents released on Jan. 4.
