The documents mainly consist of previously unseen legal arguments from the defamation case Virginia Guiffre, Epstein’s main accuser, made against his former lover Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.
Around 200 people are expected to be named as associates of Jeffrey Epstein in court papers to be unsealed by a US court.
In December, New York district judge Loretta Preska made a ruling that the papers should no longer remain secret – and has now said her court will begin to publish the documents.
Although the former US president and the Duke of York have already been linked to Epstein, the tranche of hundreds of files could reveal new details.
The documents mainly consist of previously unseen legal arguments from the defamation case Virginia Guiffre, Epstein’s main accuser, made against his former lover Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015.
Files were sealed or heavily redacted to protect the identities of “alleged victims, people not accused of wrongdoing…and absent third parties” that could have been implicated in the case.
Here we look at what you need to know.
Which case is it?
The documents were all part of a 2015 civil lawsuit lodged by Virginia Guiffre, who says she was one of Epstein’s principal victims of underage sex trafficking.
She sued Ghislaine Maxwell, 62, for defamation after her spokesperson issued a statement describing Ms Guiffre’s allegations against her and Epstein as “obvious lies”.
At the time Maxwell tried to have the case thrown out but district court judge Robert Sweet rejected her motion to dismiss it.
He ruled Ms Guiffre was the victim of “sustained underage sexual abuse between 1999 and 2002”.
The ruling paved the way for Ms Guiffre, now 40 and living in Australia, to pursue various other lawsuits, including the one against Prince Andrew for “sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress”, which was settled for a rumoured $12m (£9.45m) in February 2022. The duke has always denied her claims.
It also helped facilitate the criminal case against Maxwell, who was found guilty of five out of six charges of grooming four girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004. She was sentenced to 20 years in a US prison in December 2021 and has since launched an appeal.
What are the documents about?
Documents relating to the case were subjected to court orders sealing or redacting them to protect the privacy of some of the people named.
They are likely to be either people accused of wrongdoing – or not, including those who worked for Epstein, flew on his planes, or visited his homes, as well as alleged victims and witnesses.
The Miami Herald first intervened to get them unsealed on public interest grounds in 2018 – and this is the eighth set to be released.
The day after the first round was published in 2019, Epstein was found dead, aged 66, in his Manhattan prison cell where he was awaiting trial for child sex trafficking offences.
In December, judge Preska published her findings that there was no legal justification for keeping the names redacted.
She gave each of the people listed the chance to individually appeal her decision – with a deadline of midnight on 1 January.
