From former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton to disgraced king of pop Michael Jackson, the inclusion of some of the most famous names on the planet in this week’s release of unsealed records related to Jeffrey Epstein brought the prolific sex predator and sphere of high-flying figures he surrounded himself with into clearer focus.
The names — who were largely not accused of wrongdoing — featured among more than 1,300 pages of court filings made public in Manhattan federal court starting late Wednesday in a lawsuit settled in 2017 between Epstein’s convicted right-hand, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Virginia Giuffre.
Giuffre, now 40, has long alleged she was recruited to be abused by Epstein as a teenager and loaned out to powerful men in his orbit for sex. More than 1,000 pages were unsealed on Friday alone.
The paperwork comprises motions by Giuffre and Maxwell, excerpts from their depositions and those of other Epstein victims, members of his house staff, and law enforcement, as well as records from a 2005 investigation into the disgraced financier by the Palm Beach police that almost brought him to justice.
The tranche of documents had remained under seal throughout the litigation, primarily to protect victims’ identities and individuals whose names came up but didn’t do anything wrong, the judge who unsealed them wrote last month.
Manhattan federal court Judge Loretta Preska noted their contents were largely public record, whether from being revealed in court cases or media reports, documentaries, podcasts, books, or elsewhere. Vast swaths of the case were unsealed at various intervals in recent years following legal efforts led by the Miami Herald, including a massive release on the eve of Epstein’s 2019 suicide while he was awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail cell.
Most of the elite names to hit the headlines this week have long been known to have socialized with Epstein. Still, new tidbits of their dealings with the perverted financier add sharper detail to claims by scores of women who say he sought to leverage his high-profile contacts while grooming them for repeated sexual abuse.
Here’s a look at some of the most notable figures referenced.
Prince Andrew
Prince Andrew’s well-documented friendship with Epstein comes up throughout the filings, including Giuffre’s allegations the financier forced her to sleep with him as a teen. The disgraced British royal, who stepped down from his military duties in 2022 amid fallout over his friendship with the disgraced perv, settled a suit with Giuffre the same year for a reported $16 million. He did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement and has adamantly denied any abuse.
Andrew, King Charles’ brother, is accused in one filing by alleged Epstein victim Johanna Sjoberg of groping her at the financier’s Manhattan townhouse in April 2001 while holding a puppet of himself. Buckingham Palace previously denied it ever happened.
In her deposition, Maxwell acknowledged being on Epstein’s Caribbean island with the British royal. It was on the private island, Little St. James, where Epstein was alleged to have committed much of his abuse. There are no further details of the prince’s activities there in the deposition.
In excerpts from Juan Alessi’s deposition unsealed Friday, Epstein’s longtime house manager at his Palm Beach estate recalled the prince visiting for extended trips.
“Prince Andrew, yes, Prince Andrew spent weeks with us,” Alessi testified, adding that he received daily massages.
The Daily News in 2015 first reported on the deposition from Alessi in a 2009 case featured in Giuffre and Maxwell’s suit. Epstein’s house manager from 1990 to 2001 provided crucial testimony at Maxwell’s trial, recalling how he regularly saw famous faces at Epstein’s Florida mansion and young girls walking around topless.
Maxwell, the daughter of the disgraced publishing baron Robert Maxwell, who owned the Daily News when he died in 1991, became friends with Prince Andrew while at Oxford. She was convicted in 2021 of charges alleging she procured young girls to be abused by Epstein for around a decade and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Bill Clinton
At least 70 references to Clinton came up in the latest tranche regarding previously reported events, which he did not object to being made public.
Clinton has not been accused of abuse by Giufffre or anyone else. But her lawyers doggedly fought to depose him in vain about his relationship with Epstein and Maxwell, describing him as “a key person” who could disprove various claims made by Maxwell.
Clinton’s name was featured on multiple flight logs in evidence at Maxwell’s trial, though none to Epstein’s private island, Little St. James. At Maxwell’s criminal trial, jurors heard about how he was among the famous figures who traveled on Epstein’s private planes, along with Trump, Prince Andrew and many others.
Sjoberg’s lengthy May 2016 deposition included a particularly unfavorable and unverified claim about Clinton allegedly made by Epstein “that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.”
Clinton has admitted traveling on Epstein’s aircraft but has denied visiting his properties in the Virgin Islands, New York, and New Mexico or staying in touch with him after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a 14-year-old girl for sex. Maxwell claimed she couldn’t recall if the two men were friendly or why they once went to Thailand together, Giuffre’s lawyers wrote in one filing.
Donald Trump
Passing references are made to Trump, but nowhere is he accused of any abuse.
He also came up as one of the celebrities Alessi said he saw at Epstein’s Florida home in his 2009 deposition, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., celebrity hair stylist Frédéric Fekkai, Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson. Kennedy, Fekkai, and Ferguson were not accused of wrongdoing.
The house manager recalled Trump often coming over to Epstein’s when he was in town at his Mar-a-Lago estate, saying, “He never sat at the table. He eats with me in the kitchen.”
Epstein was placed at Trump’s Atlantic City casino in Sjoberg’s deposition. She said they stopped off when Epstein’s private pilots rerouted their flight to New York from Florida due to bad weather.
“Jeffrey said, ‘Great, we’ll call up Trump,'” Sjoberg testified, later adding she was never asked to massage Trump.
The current Republican front-runner for the 2024 election has said that he once thought the Brooklyn-born money manager was a “terrific guy” but that they never spoke after a disagreement.
Michael Jackson, David Copperfield
Sjoberg recalled meeting Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, saying she was not required to massage him. She said she also met celebrity magician Copperfield at a dinner at Epstein’s attended by a girl she believed may have still been in high school.
After doing some magic tricks, Sjoberg testified, Copperfield asked if she was “aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls.” She said he didn’t specify if they were underage.
Copperfield and Jackson were not accused of wrongdoing.
Jean-Luc Brunel
Long suspected of steering underage girls to Epstein, Brunel features throughout the tranche of legal papers. Giuffre has claimed that Maxwell forced her into sex with the French model agent multiple times.
Last year, Brunel killed himself in a French jail cell while facing sex trafficking allegations, seeing an eerily similar demise to Epstein.
Stephen Hawking, Naomi Campbell, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Bruce Willis and Leonardo DiCaprio
There is no evidence the esteemed late theoretical physicist and Cambridge professor Stephen Hawking was involved in Epstein’s depravity.
His name has come up in news reports about the document dump because Epstein mentioned it in a typo-laden email to Maxwell in 2015 about baseless rumors they could debunk.
Blanchett, Diaz, DiCaprio, and Willis similarly appeared spontaneously in filings unsealed in the case, whether in depositions or email correspondence between parties and journalists.
None were accused of wrongdoing. Reps for DiCaprio, Diaz, and Blanchett this week denied having any association with Epstein to The Guardian.
Sjoberg said Epstein name-dropped them during massages, claiming he’d been talking to some on the phone. She said she never saw or met any of the celebrities.
Campbell’s name came up when Giuffre said in her deposition that Giuffre had been forced to sleep with a French hotel owner around the same time as the supermodel’s birthday party. Campbell was not accused of wrongdoing and has condemned Epstein.
