Bali Eyewitness | A deal was reached between lawyers for victims of Jeffrey Epstein and the Justice Department to protect the identities of nearly 100 women whose lives were allegedly harmed after the government began releasing millions of documents last week, a lawyer told a federal judge on Tuesday.
Judge Richard M. Berman in Manhattan cancelled a hearing scheduled for Wednesday after he was notified by Florida attorney Brittany Henderson that “extensive and constructive discussions” with the government had resulted in an agreement.
Henderson and attorney Brad Edwards had complained to Berman in a letter Sunday that “immediate judicial intervention” was needed after there were thousands of instances when the government had failed to redact names and other personally identifying information of women sexually abused by Epstein.
Among eight women whose comments were included in the lawyers’ Sunday letter, one said the records’ release was “life threatening” while another said she’d gotten death threats and she was forced to shut down her credit cards and banking accounts after their security was jeopardized.
The lawyers had requested that the Justice Department website be temporarily shut down and that an independent monitor be appointed to ensure no further errors occurred.
After months of rancor and recriminations, Congress has passed and President Donald Trump has signed a law compelling the Justice Department to give the public everything it has on Epstein — and it has to be done before Christmas.
On Wednesday, a judge ruled that secret grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be made public. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman was the third judge to reverse earlier decisions to keep Epstein-related case material under wraps. All three cited the new law that requires the government to open its files on both Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. Berman has cautioned that the materials slated for release are hardly revelatory.
While there’s sure to be never-before-seen material in the thousands of pages likely to be released in the Florida transcripts and other Epstein-related records, a lot has already been made public, including by Congress and through litigation.
