Nineteen unsealed documents from a lawsuit connected to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile who died in jail before he could face trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, were publicly released on Thursday.
This is the second batch stemming from a December 18 court order from the judge overseeing the lawsuit, a response to media’s legal efforts to publicly release the documents.
Thursday’s release follows hundreds of pages of documents unsealed on Wednesday, with more expected in the coming weeks.
The documents in total, including material yet to be unsealed, are expected to include nearly 200 names, including some of Epstein’s accusers, prominent businesspeople, politicians and potentially more.
CNN is now reviewing the documents.
Being named in the unsealed documents does not necessarily mean someone was accused of or committed wrongdoing, though.
The first round of documents, released Wednesday, mostly contained names and information that had already been reported in various media outlets and made public through other court proceedings. However, this is the first time these specific documents have been released publicly. More documents may be unsealed in the coming days.
The documents are part of a 2015 civil defamation suit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an American woman who claimed Epstein sexually abused her as a minor and that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, aided in the abuse.
Giuffre and Maxwell settled their civil suit in 2017, but the court filings were previously redacted to protect individuals’ privacy. Some names and information are still blacked out in the unsealed documents.
Most of the documents from the suit were unsealed in 2019, one day before Epstein died by suicide in jail.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison after being found guilty of sex trafficking in 2021.
In a statement to CNN Wednesday, Maxwell’s attorneys said: “She has consistently and vehemently maintained her innocence.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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