The files, which name more than 170 Epstein associates were ordered released by Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska last month
A fresh batch of newly released US court documents, related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial, has created great hype. The Internet has been rife in recent weeks with posts speculating the documents amounted to a list of who’s who of powerful men who were Epstein’s “clients”.
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The first 40 documents in the court-ordered release largely consisted of already public material revealed through nearly two decades of newspaper stories, TV documentaries, interviews, legal cases and books about the Epstein scandal. The records, including transcripts of interviews with some of Epstein’s victims, had mentions of his past links with former US President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew. It is important to note that Clinton is not accused of wrongdoing and there is no implication of any illegality. When contacted for comment, his representatives referred to a statement he issued in 2019 saying he “knows nothing” about Epstein’s crimes, according to the BBC.
‘CLINTON LIKES THEM YOUNG’
In her May 2016 deposition, Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, according to The Associated Press, testified that Epstein once remarked to her that “Clinton likes them young.” This remark Sjoberg took as a reference to young women or girls. The newly released files, which name more than 170 Epstein associates were ordered released by a US federal Judge last month. They were filed in a since-settled defamation lawsuit that Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre brought against the late sexual offender’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2015.
Epstein was initially arrested in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 after he was accused of paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. Dozens of other underage girls described similar sexual abuse, but prosecutors ultimately allowed the financier to plead guilty in 2008 to a charge involving a single victim. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program.
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President Clinton’s name appears in a deposition that British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell gave in 2016 relating to her dealings with the late Jeffrey Epstein is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., October 22, 2020. (Reuters)
Some famous acquaintances abandoned Epstein after his conviction but the US financier continued to mingle with the rich and famous for another decade. Subsequently, reporting by the US media renewed interest in the scandal, and federal prosecutors in New York charged Epstein in 2019 with sex trafficking. He later killed himself in jail while awaiting trial. After he hanged himself in a prison cell in 2019, Epstein’s ex-pilot, testifying in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial, had revealed that a list of powerful men, including Clinton, who flew aboard Epstein’s private plane.
The pilot, Larry Visoski, said he would typically be given notice if Clinton or high-profile passengers like him would be flying, CNN reported at the time. He recalled Prince Andrew, Maine Sen. George Mitchell and Ohio Sen. John Glenn on flights. At that time, Visoski also said he’d fly Epstein to Columbus, Ohio, where Epstein also had property, to see billionaire businessman Les Wexner. At that time, none of the high-profile passengers mentioned in Visoski’s testimony were alleged to have committed any wrongdoing. Clinton’s spokesperson previously admitted to Clinton being aboard Epstein’s plane four times but said the former US president knew nothing about Epstein’s “terrible crimes.”
“In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation,” Clinton spokesperson Angel Urena said in 2019. In bombshell reports from July 2020, media outlets said that Clinton had flown to Jeffrey Epstein’s “orgy island with two young girls.” This information came to light following the release of a trove of historic Ghislaine Maxwell court documents by a New York court. In the documents, Epstein’s “victim” Virginia Giuffre had said the former US president visited Epstein’s infamous private Caribbean Island.
When Giuffre was asked: “Do you have any recollection of Jeffrey Epstein specifically telling you that ‘Bill Clinton owes me favours?’” “Yes, I do,” she answered, according to The Sun newspaper. “It was a laugh though. He would laugh it off. You know, I remember asking Jeffrey what’s Bill Clinton doing here [on Epstein’s island] kind of thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me favors.” “He never told me what favours they were,” Giuffre had said at the time.
(With agency inputs)
