Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska has ordered Jeffrey Epstein accuser, Virginia Giuffre, to destroy evidence consisting of files that contain names of alleged Epstein associates because, Preska said, they were “improperly obtained.”
Proof needs to be provided that the documents have been destroyed in the form of an “affidavit detailing the steps taken to do so.”
Giuffre has claimed that one of the men Epstein forced her to have sex with was his attorney, Alan Dershowitz. In response Dershowitz sued Giuffre for defamation in 2019. As part of that lawsuit Dershowitz requested access to Giuffre’s files.
There are reportedly 2,000 pages of documents in the cache along with an address book with about 1,000 names.
Epstein was arrested last year on multiple charges related to running a sex trafficking operation with under age girls. He committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell weeks after being arrested. Many suspect foul play was involved.
Ghislaine Maxwell, his alleged “madame,” was arrested yesterday in New Hampshire.
It’s unclear why Preska would take the extraordinary step of mandating that the evidence be destroyed while any evidence that is “improperly obtained” is usually just declared inadmissible in the related court proceedings.
The names that have been mentioned in connection with Epstein’s sex trafficking ring represent a veritable who’s who of wealthy and powerful men all over the world including Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of the UK and Bill Gates.
“Several years ago, I was at his house in Manhattan for about 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon with Talulah [Riley], as she was curious about meeting this strange person for a novel she was writing,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said of meeting Epstein.
“We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird art. He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.”