‘Potentially embarrassing’ documents on Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell will be released, US judge orders
- Lawyers for disgraced financier’s ex-girlfriend say records include testimony in which she was asked ‘intrusive’ questions about her sex life.
- Maxwell faces criminal charges that she lured underage women for Epstein to abuse
A US judge on Thursday authorised the release of new records from a 2015 civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and long-time Jeffrey Epstein associate who is facing criminal charges that she lured girls for the late financier to sexually abuse.
Over Maxwell’s objections, US District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan said the presumption the public has a right to access large portions of the more than 80 documents at issue outweighed Maxwell’s arguments for keeping them under wraps, including that they could prove embarrassing.
Preska also said personal identifying information contained in the documents, as well as the names of many “non-parties”, will be redacted.
The documents will not be released immediately, after the judge granted Maxwell’s lawyer a week to file an emergency motion with the federal appeal court in Manhattan to block the release.
Maxwell, 58, is being held in a Brooklyn jail after pleading not guilty on July 10 to charges she helped Epstein recruit and eventually abuse girls from 1994 to 1997, and committed perjury by denying knowledge of his abuse in depositions.
