The famous Jeffrey Epstein’s case of sex trafficking court papers was unsealed on 3 January 2024.
The first set of court papers were disclosed after Judge Loretta Preska decided in December that they may be unsealed, and no objections were raised.
The documents comes from a 2015 lawsuit which was filed by Virginia Giuffre against Jeffrey and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell for sex trafficking.
He was one of the richest men in the nineties and was once friends with many of the high-profile celebrities, business moguls, and public figures, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. He was accused of trafficking and having sex with young girls.
Prince Andrew was also accused of having sex with Giuffre, who was seventeen at the time of the incident.
Giuffre has been the most outspoken of Epstein’s accusers, and in 2022, she resolved the sexual assault lawsuit against Prince Andrew for $12 million. The Duke of York lost his titles as a result of his affiliation with Epstein. He had denied all the allegations made by Giuffre.
A deposition from Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg was included in the materials.
The newly revealed records are part of a case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend, who was imprisoned for assisting him in his abuse of women. However, the records thus far reveal no significant fresh claims against Epstein or disclosures about his colleagues.
But, an allegation against Prince Andrew has been released in the court papers. Prince Andrew is accused of groping the breasts of a lady who was the victim of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
New allegations against Prince Andrew
One of the files that were released on 3 January gave insight into new allegations against Prince Andrew. The papers provided this week contain testimony from another of Epstein’s claimed victims, Johanna Sjoberg.
According to court files unsealed, Johanna statement is recorded as Prince Andrew touched her breast at Epstein’s residence in New York City in 2001.
She said that while posing for a group portrait with Giuffre, Epstein, Maxwell, and a puppet of Andrew’s likeness, Prince Andrew placed his hand on her breast. Andrew has denied that he has not done anything of that sort or any misconduct.
The files released have a statement from Johanna in which she says that
They told us to go get on the couch and so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch. They put the puppet, the puppet on her lap. And then Johanna sat on Andrew’s lap, and she believed on her own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on her breasts.
She also admitted that it was done in a joking manner when the judge asked so. Prince Andrew was also accused of having forced sex with Giuffre on three occasions when she was only seventeen.
However, police have not launched any investigation regarding the case after the accusation. The Metropolitan Police stated that they are aware of the release of the court documents in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. They also said that new and relevant information should be brought to them for further assessment.
What happened to Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein was one of the wealthiest financiers and bankers in the 1990s. In 2005, he was accused of sexually abusing a fourteen-year-old girl. But later, the investigators found out that he was trafficking girls of the same age and was a sex offender.
Epstein was detained at a New Jersey airport on July 6 2005 and was accused in a fresh federal indictment alleging that he had sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his residences. As per some of the statements, he has recruited many girls to recruit more victims.
Epstein was charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to participate in sex trafficking of minors in the indictment. He was released after serving thirteen months in jail.
But he was later arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking and was found in the jail cell. His death was confirmed by the doctors as suicide.
