List could be released as soon as Tuesday after deadline for objections to unsealing of names passes midnight Monday
Nearly 200 names connected to the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy could be released by a New York judge as soon as Tuesday, exposing or confirming the identities of dozens of associates of the disgraced financier that until now have only been known as John and Jane Does in court papers.
A deadline for objections to the unsealing of the names passes at midnight on Monday, nearly nine years after victim Virginia Giuffre filed a single defamation claim against Maxwell, daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, in 2015, that in turn produced the names in legal depositions.
A year later, in 2016, US district court judge Robert Sweet rejected Maxwell’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that “the veracity of a contextual world of facts more broad than the allegedly defamatory statements” and that Guiffre “was a victim of sustained underage sexual abuse between 1999 and 2002”. The parties settled out of court in 2017.
In reality? Nothing, if there’s no further evidence of the individual’s participation in Epstein’s activities. Because of the shitload of people who encountered Epstein in various social settings without participating in his illegal activities (not saying they didn’t have knowledge of his activities which I assume was an open secret among the wealthy) it will be likely be impossible to pin individuals to crimes sufficient to result in a conviction in court. Plus, being rich and powerful is a disincentive for prosecutors to pursue crimes because of all the usual reasons.
So yeah. Nothing will happen to these people.
I imagine most people thought “Epstein sure likes those barely-legal, young-looking girls!” Some surely knew he was raping minors, but I bet it was a tiny minority. Even if they personally had no problem with pedophiles (unlikely), they must have known how dangerous it would be to be associated with them.
For Epstein, it was probably a big risk every time he revealed that the girls were actually underage. The person he revealed it to might try to blackmail him. So, I bet he was very selective about who he let know that the girls were minors. Sure, he was seen with young-looking girls, but they were probably plausibly old enough that people could assume they were just barely 18. He probably used them to see who was especially interested, and those people were the ones who he revealed the truth to.
Or they let themselves get close to Epstein thinking they everything was barely legal, then Epstein got blackmail material on them from an awkward foot massage. I would pay more attention to the repeats on his flight logs then his address book.