“Dozens of court documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein’s associates, including a billionaire businessman, will be made public after a judge ruled the public interest outweighs the right to privacy,” Daily Mail reports.
“Judge Loretta Preska on Friday ruled that the material concerning eight people should be unsealed despite one subject claiming it could ‘wrongfully harm (his) privacy and reputation.'”
The papers are part of a defamation case that victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre brought against the financier’s madam and facilitator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The judge overrode objections from Tom Pritzker, the billionaire executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels.
In his submission to the court, Pritzker claimed it would ‘wrongfully harm (his) privacy and reputation’ if material related to him was made public.
NEW 🚨 Dozens of court documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein's associates will be made public after a judge ruled the public interest outweighs the right to privacy. – Daily Mail
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) November 18, 2022
Dozens of documents relating to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's associates will be UNSEALED https://t.co/2LY3g8hWUL pic.twitter.com/QN2GKqDr9U
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 18, 2022
Cont. from Daily Mail:
The documents are part of a defamation case brought against Maxwell by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2016 that was later settled.
The trove of material has been released on a rolling basis after with the first set coming in 2019, two days before Epstein killed himself, after numerous requests from media organizations.
A total of 16 ‘Non-Party Does’ objected to the release of the files being made public and the first set of eight have already been dealt with by the federal court in New York.
The latest batch related to the remaining eight, referred to as Does 12, 28, 97, 107, 144, 147, 171, and 183.
Judge Preska said that much of the ‘purportedly sensitive information’ had already been made public last year during Maxwell’s trial for trafficking underage girls to Epstein, which led to her being jailed for 20 years.
She ran through dozens of documents and ordered them to be unsealed.
They included material related to the British woman who has strongly denied any wrongdoing in relation to her work for Maxwell.
She filed a lawsuit against Miami Herald journalist Julie Brown in July about her book on the Epstein scandal.
Judge Preska noted that the lawsuit repeated some of the allegedly defamatory statements made in the book and that the woman has been referred to in other publicly available material.
‘This document will be unsealed’, Judge Preska said.
Documents related to Doe 183 were to be made public as they have been the ‘subject of intense media coverage’ and cropped up in Maxwell’s trial.
However, Judge Preska put a stay on the release of this material to November 28 so that the Doe could appeal if they wanted.
Doe 107 claimed that unsealing their material would ‘connect’ them to the Epstein and ‘unnecessarily invade (their) privacy’.
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