Federal court rules many names will be unsealed, though not all.
A federal judge has ruled that many names linked to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public in the future.
The identities of 156 people, including associates of Mr. Epstein, will be disclosed in previously redacted documents, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled on Dec. 18.
The ruling came in a case brought against Mr. Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2022 was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Judge Preska, appointed under President George H. W. Bush, had given parties mentioned in depositions and other documents time to raise objections to the unsealing of their names but most of the parties did not raise any objections, according to the new order.
The people who will be named include affiliates of Mr. Epstein, alleged victims of the late financier, and some of his former employees, according to court filings. They also include multiple journalists and witnesses.
Some of the individuals have salacious allegations against them, Judge Preska said, but they either did not identify any interests that outweigh the presumption of access, asked the court to unseal the materials, or did not speak to the court at all.
A number of the people have spoken to the media, including Cathy and Miles Alexander, who told the Daily Mail in 2011 that they managed Mr. Epstein’s island in the Caribbean for eight years. Others, though, have never been identified as being associated with Mr. Epstein, according to the order.
Several people are deceased. Their details will be made public if the new order goes through.
Judge Preska stayed her own order for 14 days to give the affected parties time to lodge appeals.
Judge Preska also ruled that the names of 10 people will remain sealed because they have important privacy interests.
Some in that group, for instance, are alleged to have suffered sexual abuse when they were minors and have not spoken out publicly about what they went through. Another was described as a “classic outsider, peripheral to the events at issue.”
