November 28, 2025 • 23 mins
The lawyers representing survivors — including a firm called Edwards & Henderson — submitted a scathing filing to a federal judge after a recent release of documents tied to the Epstein estate revealed dozens of unredacted names of alleged victims, even including some who were minors at the time of abuse. The disclosure, made public via a release authorized by the House Oversight Committee, triggered “widespread panic” among survivors, who said the government had promised to shield their identities but instead exposed them. One survivor reportedly stated she had “been unable to mentally and emotionally function or sleep.”
In their letter the lawyers argued that the unredacted names couldn’t merely be a mistake — either the DOJ “does not know” all the identities of the victims and therefore cannot reliably redact them, or it “is intentionally failing to protect victims from public exposure.” They asked the court to require the DOJ to overhaul its review and redaction process, to ensure no further releases of sensitive documents occur before proper redactions are in place. Without that, they warned, survivors would remain at risk of further trauma, public shaming, and emotional distress.
to contact me:
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In their letter the lawyers argued that the unredacted names couldn’t merely be a mistake — either the DOJ “does not know” all the identities of the victims and therefore cannot reliably redact them, or it “is intentionally failing to protect victims from public exposure.” They asked the court to require the DOJ to overhaul its review and redaction process, to ensure no further releases of sensitive documents occur before proper redactions are in place. Without that, they warned, survivors would remain at risk of further trauma, public shaming, and emotional distress.
to contact me:
bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. In our previous episode, we were talking about
the DOJ and their piss poor job when it comes
to redacting the names of survivors. Well, here's the actual
letter that was sent on behalf of the survivors to
the court. And this letter was sent by Brad Edwards
(00:22):
and Britney Henderson. Honorable Judge Berman, having received a similar
invitation to respond to the government's companion motion to unseal
grand jury transcripts in the case of the United States
of America, first Glayne Maxwell, given the identical applicability, and
to maintain consistency and position, we provide you with the
same response herein the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Glainne
(00:47):
Maxwell write with the utmost respect for the judicial system
as the only governing body representative of the United States
of America, recognizing their fundamental rights to protection and privacy,
as my kind fully noted in the Courts November twenty fourth,
twenty twenty five order. As with earlier emotions to unseal,
the government's motion is silent as to the rights of
(01:09):
victims of Maxwell and or Jeffrey Epstein to be heard
pursu into the Crime Victims Rights Act US Code eighteen,
Section thirty seven thirty one. Likewise, despite alleged best intentions,
the House Oversight Committee has recently uploaded dozens of documents
to the public domain received from both the Department of
Justice and the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein that have exposed
(01:33):
the identities of victims and consequently caused significant emotional distress
for our clients. To be clear, undersigned counsel has personally
dedicated a tremendous amount of time pro bono to assisting
Congress in various facets as it relates to its objectives
of obtaining records to gain insight into the crimes of
(01:54):
Jeffrey Epstein and his organization. However, transparency cannot come at
the expense of the ibaseee safety and protection of sexual
abuse and sex trafficking victims, especially the survivors who have
already suffered repeatedly both at the hands of their abusers
as well as by the actions of the media and
(02:14):
in actions of the government. On November twelfth, twenty twenty five,
the House Oversight Committee released twenty thousand documents two into
the public domain causing widespread panic among survivors of Jeffrey
Epstein all over the world. Among nearly a dozen others,
UNDERSIGN has received the following communications Victim one, can you
(02:36):
speak today? I see that my name was not redacted
from anything in the first release. How do they know
who the survivors are? Surely it should include all people
under the umbrella of for instance, what the Mental Health
Fund includes those who have moved through matters with the
estate and with the banks. At a minimum, can I
(02:57):
apply to the Department of Justice for anything? Can you
help with redactions of my name? Well, I believe all
survivors have a human right to choose they're a path
or recovery for themselves in a way that enables them
to survive. I as strongly believe that despite the personal
and individual path chosen, the protections they are granted should
be the same across the board. This type of negligence
(03:20):
by the government to a survivor is just unable to comprehend.
It's just impossible, it can't be. And what about the
physical protection for those outside the US. It's beyond If
we appear in a searchable PDF alongside anything to do
with Israel, it's very unfortunately and sadly the case that
we are in physical danger. I don't understand how this
(03:42):
is possible. Victim two, I'm sorry to bother you, but
given the current situation that might expose more victims' names
to the public, I have been unable to mentally and
emotionally function or sleep. I'm trying to see if we
have a power to override any decision for our names
not to be exposed. Would you be available for a
(04:02):
brief chat sometime this week. I would greatly appreciate it.
Victim three, I am besides myself with worry about the
current news and the redaction situation. As the first random
file I happened to click had handwritten pages of Palm
Beach massage and had had Victim four's name and my
name and so many others. The whole page was available
(04:24):
for everyone to see with our unredacted names. I thought
the government had promised to redact our names and identifying material.
I don't understand how this is happening again, have you
heard back from them at all? You kindly sent me
the letters you had sent me, but I don't know
what's happening anymore. And hope you can update me so
(04:45):
I can know what to expect and when. This situation
is very scary for me. In addition to the direct
quotes above, we have fielded calls from at least six
victims who have been contacted by the press after their
names were released by the House Oversight Committee. Several have
been approached personally by reporters on the street, and one
(05:06):
was confronted in front of her nine year old son
by a reporter asking for her to comment about being
an Epstein victim. And anybody who's trying to chase these
women down stop it. If they want to talk, they'll talk.
If they don't want to talk, well leave them the
fuck alone. The situation is already dire. We have diligently
and repeatedly brought this issue to Congress, and the source
(05:28):
of the problem, we are told, lies with the Department
of Justice. There remain dozens of women whose names were
shared improperly in the latest House Oversight document upload, who
are not yet aware that their privacy has been violated
and that they have been put at risk by the
Department of Justice, for example, and proceeding with intentional caution.
(05:49):
Given the public attention to the matter, There is one document,
in particular, that was provided to the House Oversight Committee
by the Department of Justice, wherein the names of at
least twenty eight victims left unredacted, including individuals who were
minor children at the time of the abuse and women
who have been afforded protection in other courtrooms in this
(06:09):
jurisdiction as a result of grave public safety concerns. While
we will detail the various excuses that the court will
no doubt be provided, this is absolutely unacceptable in a
problem that must be rectified prior to the public release
of any additional documents. As a result of these numerous
flagrant violations, Undersigned has been in near constant communication with
(06:34):
the House Oversight Committee Majority, the House Oversight Committee Minority,
the House Judiciary Committee, the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein, and
various members of the United States House of Representatives and
the United States Senate since Congress began issuing document subpoenas
and continuing through the recent passage of the Epstein Files
Transparency Act on November nineteenth, twenty twenty five. Notwithstanding, and
(06:58):
despite numerous pleas for assistance, there is one singular entity
that the victims cannot seem to find a way to
engage and which has been the primary violator of the
victim's identity protection thus far, the Department of Justice, by
way of background for the Court. The process that led
these unmistakable violations of the victim's rights and to the
(07:20):
broken promises of protection made to the victims by Congress
begins with the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein and the Department
of Justice and ends with the House Oversight Committee. Our
understanding is that the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein provides a
redacted version of all documents to the House Oversight Committee,
and that the Department of Justice does the same. The
(07:41):
House Oversite Committee then relies on the redactions of the
former to be accurate and post those redacted documents to
the public domain. The few eras in redactions in the
Estate documents seem to have been genuine mistakes that were
made by redaction software. Given that even mistakes can have
grave common consequences in the lives of victims, we are
(08:02):
engaging the Estate on the issue and hope to reach
a victim centered solution. Of much greater concern is the
redaction process, or complete lack thereof being applied by the
Department of Justice with no direct understanding of the process,
and only comparing unredacted documents in our possession with the
redacted versions provided by the DOJ to Congress, it appears
(08:25):
that the DOJ has sent a very short list of
victims whose identities were redacted in certain documents in the
US versus Maxwell case, whose names were likewise redacted in
its production, leaving all others completely unredacted. Given the number
of times we have drawn Congress's attention to the issue
and the fact that victims' names continue to be produced
(08:48):
by DOJ in unredacted form, many of the victims believe
this is being done intentionally, regardless of how we arrived
here prior to the release by the DOJ of any
grand jury material or any other Epstein related files for
that matter. This is an issue that must be addressed
directly with the Department of Justice, and this honorable Court
(09:10):
has provided our only plausible vehicle for doing so at
this juncture, as made clear by the DOJS and proper
releases to oversight. Thus far, the problem is either one
the Department of Justice does not know the identities of
all the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and thus cannot apply
proper redactions to the files or to the Department of
(09:32):
Justice is intentionally failing to protect victims from public exposure. Optimistically,
assuming the former, it's not possible for the Department of
Justice to properly redact the names of victims without our
assistance or the assistance of individuals who work personally on
the criminal or civil Epstein related cases. Given our two
(09:53):
decades of investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell, DOJ
simply does not and can do not have the same
level of knowledge that we do with respect to the
identity of the victims, though reasoning behind this is trifled. One,
the two thousand and six Southern District of Florida investigation
into Jeffrey Epstein focused only on his minor child victims
(10:15):
in Florida. Two, Jeffrey Epstein died during the course of
the two thousand and eight Southern District of New York investigation,
which focused only on his minor child victims in Florida
and New York. And three, the Southern District of New
York investigation into Glenn Maxwell focused solely on the subset
of victims which were relevant to our involvement in the
(10:37):
abuse in each of those investigations. Through legal counsel, and
even unbeknownst to the undersigned, for many years, Jeffrey Epstein
was able to use lawyers that he paid for to
silence certain victims who could have served as critical witnesses.
This was done without their knowledge and despite their desire
to be freed from his chains of control and abuse.
(10:59):
For example, the Department of Justice included three young women
as co conspirators in Jeffrey Epstein's two thousand and seven
non prosecution agreement without their consent or knowledge, without ever
once interviewing or speaking with them directly, and without ever
learning during the course of that initial investigation that each
of those women had themselves been subjected by horrific sexual
(11:22):
abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, these women cooperated with
the Department of Justice during the New York investigations, and
unlike Glain Maxwell, these women were not prosecuted because once
their stories were heard, it was clear that they two
were victims more pertinent to the breath of the problem here.
(11:42):
None of the investigations conducted by the Department of Justice
ever focused on the young American adult women who were
victimized through fraud force and coercion, or the international trafficking
operation that Jeffrey Epstein was running, involving exploitation an abuse
of young but not minor women, including those from nearly
every Eastern European country. Like I've been telling you for
(12:04):
how long. To be clear, there are hundreds of women
who were internationally trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. We represent women
from Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Belarus, Sweden, England,
and France, to name only a few. Most of these
women have never spoken with the DOJ nor the Department
(12:26):
of Justice ever interested in speaking with them during any
act of investigation, given that Epstein was never prosecuted or
investigated for the international crimes that he committed, likely because
he died in prison before the government learned of that
element of his trafficking scheme. Nonetheless, with respect to these women,
Epstein engaged in extensive immigration fraud, executed illegally internationally transport
(12:52):
aspiring young models into the country, where he would hold
their visas in companies that he created and their passports
in his possession, so that they could not escape and
so that he was able to control and essentially enslave them.
We appreciate the Department of Justice July twenty twenty five
representation that it has confirmed that Epstein harmed over one
(13:13):
thousand victims and that each has suffered unique trauma. On
the basis of that representation, we asked the Court to
confirm with the DOJ that the prior to releasing files
to the House Oversight Committee, it undertook the onerous and
necessary task of redacting all one thousand plus victim names
that it had in its possession when that statement was released.
(13:36):
On that point, at inquiry, the Court will learn that
the DOJ's redaction process and its process efforts are so
irreconcilable with the number of victims it has publicly acknowledged
that when confronted with the discrepancy, its response will land
somewhere between incoherent mumbling non sequitur and outright misrepresentation. We
(13:59):
asked the Court to ordure that the Department of Justice
reaffirm its commitment to make sure all victim identifying information
is redacted, subject to sanction for any failure prior to
allowing for the release of a single page of grand
jury material containing victim information and prior to releasing any
additional documents containing victim information to the House Oversight Committee
(14:22):
or any other entity that could lead to public disclosure.
We ask the court to order that the DOJ meet
in confidence with the undersigned, so that a list of
victims in our possession, including over three hundred women with
whom we have or have had contact with, be transmitted
in a precisely secure manner to ensure that those women
(14:44):
are protected from future harm to the extent that they
are not already included within the thousand women identified by
the Department of Justice. Our request is simple, that the
identity of all the victims be protected, and our promise
is to help facilitate that protect in whatever way is
possible or necessary. These women aren't political pawns their mothers,
(15:06):
wives and daughters. These are women who were abused by
Jeffrey Epstein and in some instances by others, and who
have already had their rights violated in the past by
the government. They are human beings who have the right
to be treated with dignity and respect, and to feel
safe and protected by our country, which has failed them
(15:27):
time and time again. The intention of the Epstein Transparency
Act it is quite frankly mind boggling to be back
in front of the court on the issue of the
grand jury materials, as if these materials are in some
way the lynchpin to the investigation or representative of what
Congress expects the Department of Justice to produce pursuant to
(15:47):
the Epstein Files Transparency Act. As explained by Judge Richard Berman,
the information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts peals
in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and material in
the hands of the DOJ. It's obvious that those knowledgeable
of the legal system that the DOJ is using this
(16:08):
motion to attempt to trick the American people into believing
that it intends to provide full transparency. The only thing
thus far transparent about DOJ's actions is its intent to
deceive the American people, a fact that has been called
out by two separate courts. As this court astutely observed,
a member of the public appreciating that the Maxwell grand
(16:28):
jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might
conclude that the government's motion for their unsealing was aimed
not at transparency but at diversion aim not a full disclosure,
but at the illusion of such. The Epstein Files consist
of the totality of the investigations completed by one Southern
(16:49):
District of Florida from two thousand and six to two
thousand and eight, two Southern District of New York into
Jeffrey Epstein from twenty eighteen to nineteen and three into
Glenn Maxwell from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one, highlighting
the magnitude of the problem and utter lack of transparency.
To date, the Department of Justice has never released even
(17:10):
the most basic of investigative materials pertaining to the very
first investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, including the fifty three page
indictment or the eighty two page prosecution memorandum that were
prepared by assisting US Attorney Marie Villafuna in two thousand
and seven in the Southern District of Florida. Notwithstanding, within
(17:31):
these files as a whole, stemming across three investigations and
two jurisdictions, there are dozens of FBI three zero twos
generated in each of the three investigations, hundreds of thousands
of pages a document seized from electronic devices located within
Epstein and presumably Maxwell's various homes, all other material discovered
(17:52):
during the various raids, information on nearly one hundred companies
created by Jeffrey Epstein and his team of professionals, and
a plethora of financial records, as confirmed in the DOJS
July twenty twenty five press release, after conducting an exhaustive
review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein, including digital
(18:14):
searches of its database, hard drives, and network drives, as
well as physical searches of squad areas, lock cabinets, desks, closets,
and other areas where responsive materials may have been stored.
These searches uncovered a significant amount of material, including more
than three hundred gigabytes of data and physical evidence. DOJ
(18:37):
then indicated that none of that information would be released
because included within the information was crimes against children and
sexual abuse material. With the passage of the Epstein Files
Transparency Act, we now expect most of this information to
be redacted and released, with of course, the exception of
all CP sexual abuse material, pornographic material, and victim identifying materials,
(19:02):
all of which are explicitly excluded from disclosure by the Act.
While the purposes of This response is simply to ask
the Court's assistance in ensuring that the victim's names and
identifying information are protected from the public discourse in accordance
with the previous direction of this Honorable Court, the Honorable
Judge Berman's Court, the Honorable Judge Marra's Court, the US
(19:25):
Crime Victim's Rights Act, and the US States Congress through
the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Undersigned, will be remiss not
to remind the Court that this country should expect far
more from the Department of Justice than this incredibly small
and largely irrelevant subset of grand jury materials that seem
to serve as nothing more than the DOJ's perpetual distraction
(19:48):
from providing the American people with full transparency as it
relates to Jeffrey Epstein while protecting the victims Codified victim
protection In the United States of America, all crime victims
have rights pursuant to the Crime Victim's Rights Act, including,
but not limited to, the right to be treated with
fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and privacy. Furthermore,
(20:14):
pursuant HR forty four oh five, the Epstein Files Transparency
Act two see permitted withholdings one, the Attorney General may
withhold or addact the segrable portions of records that a
contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims personal and
medical files, and similar files, the disclosure of which would
(20:37):
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Based on
the language of the law, there is no justifiable reason
for any document to ever be released by the Department
of Justice without first redacting the name or personally identifiable
information of all victims. More than a handful of our
courageous survivors stood on Capitol Hill alongside lawmakers and fervens
(21:00):
support of this legislation, steadfast in their commitment to transparency.
But what the world has not yet seen and will
hopefully never see, are the dozens upon dozens of survivors
who chose to support them from the shadows, overwhelmed by
constant fear of exposure, reprisal, and revictimization. That is what
(21:20):
matters here. Choice. The women were deprived of choice when
their childhoods were stolen from them by heinous sexual abuse,
When their early adult dreams of dancing or advancing their
education or careers were shattered by rape, and for the
women abroad when their lifelong desire to emigrate to the
safety in the US as models became permanently tethered to
(21:41):
sexual exploitation, the acceptance of which became their lifeline. These
women now begged the court and begged the United States
Department of Justice to allow them to choose to remain protected.
They asked that their names and the names of all
survivors be redacted in any files that are provided to
Congress or to the public by the Department of Justice.
(22:04):
Those victims who wish to expose themselves can make that
personal choice after the files have been released. We hereby
request that this court or any other court choose to
unseal grand jury material. The unsealing be done with redactions
to protect all victims of Jeffrey Epstein, in consultation with
the undersigned Council, to ensure that the Department of Justice
(22:26):
is in possession of the identities of all verified victims.
Further to the extent that this request is within the
jurisdiction of the court. Undersign requests that the Department of
Justice be ordered to one consult with Undersigned to obtain
a confidential list of over three hundred victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Two,
that the list containing the identities of victims be forever
(22:48):
protected from public disclosure in compliance with the Crime Victims
Rights Act and codified by US Code eighteen, Section thirty
seven seventy one, and three. That this Court retained jurisdiction
to impose sanctions on the Department of Justice if, after
this Court's order, DOJ continues to disseminate the identities of
(23:09):
victims unredacted. Very truly, Yours, Edwards Henderson, PLLLC. All of
the information that goes with this episode can be found
in the description box.
What's up everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. In our previous episode, we were talking about
the DOJ and their piss poor job when it comes
to redacting the names of survivors. Well, here's the actual
letter that was sent on behalf of the survivors to
the court. And this letter was sent by Brad Edwards
(00:22):
and Britney Henderson. Honorable Judge Berman, having received a similar
invitation to respond to the government's companion motion to unseal
grand jury transcripts in the case of the United States
of America, first Glayne Maxwell, given the identical applicability, and
to maintain consistency and position, we provide you with the
same response herein the Victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Glainne
(00:47):
Maxwell write with the utmost respect for the judicial system
as the only governing body representative of the United States
of America, recognizing their fundamental rights to protection and privacy,
as my kind fully noted in the Courts November twenty fourth,
twenty twenty five order. As with earlier emotions to unseal,
the government's motion is silent as to the rights of
(01:09):
victims of Maxwell and or Jeffrey Epstein to be heard
pursu into the Crime Victims Rights Act US Code eighteen,
Section thirty seven thirty one. Likewise, despite alleged best intentions,
the House Oversight Committee has recently uploaded dozens of documents
to the public domain received from both the Department of
Justice and the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein that have exposed
(01:33):
the identities of victims and consequently caused significant emotional distress
for our clients. To be clear, undersigned counsel has personally
dedicated a tremendous amount of time pro bono to assisting
Congress in various facets as it relates to its objectives
of obtaining records to gain insight into the crimes of
(01:54):
Jeffrey Epstein and his organization. However, transparency cannot come at
the expense of the ibaseee safety and protection of sexual
abuse and sex trafficking victims, especially the survivors who have
already suffered repeatedly both at the hands of their abusers
as well as by the actions of the media and
(02:14):
in actions of the government. On November twelfth, twenty twenty five,
the House Oversight Committee released twenty thousand documents two into
the public domain causing widespread panic among survivors of Jeffrey
Epstein all over the world. Among nearly a dozen others,
UNDERSIGN has received the following communications Victim one, can you
(02:36):
speak today? I see that my name was not redacted
from anything in the first release. How do they know
who the survivors are? Surely it should include all people
under the umbrella of for instance, what the Mental Health
Fund includes those who have moved through matters with the
estate and with the banks. At a minimum, can I
(02:57):
apply to the Department of Justice for anything? Can you
help with redactions of my name? Well, I believe all
survivors have a human right to choose they're a path
or recovery for themselves in a way that enables them
to survive. I as strongly believe that despite the personal
and individual path chosen, the protections they are granted should
be the same across the board. This type of negligence
(03:20):
by the government to a survivor is just unable to comprehend.
It's just impossible, it can't be. And what about the
physical protection for those outside the US. It's beyond If
we appear in a searchable PDF alongside anything to do
with Israel, it's very unfortunately and sadly the case that
we are in physical danger. I don't understand how this
(03:42):
is possible. Victim two, I'm sorry to bother you, but
given the current situation that might expose more victims' names
to the public, I have been unable to mentally and
emotionally function or sleep. I'm trying to see if we
have a power to override any decision for our names
not to be exposed. Would you be available for a
(04:02):
brief chat sometime this week. I would greatly appreciate it.
Victim three, I am besides myself with worry about the
current news and the redaction situation. As the first random
file I happened to click had handwritten pages of Palm
Beach massage and had had Victim four's name and my
name and so many others. The whole page was available
(04:24):
for everyone to see with our unredacted names. I thought
the government had promised to redact our names and identifying material.
I don't understand how this is happening again, have you
heard back from them at all? You kindly sent me
the letters you had sent me, but I don't know
what's happening anymore. And hope you can update me so
(04:45):
I can know what to expect and when. This situation
is very scary for me. In addition to the direct
quotes above, we have fielded calls from at least six
victims who have been contacted by the press after their
names were released by the House Oversight Committee. Several have
been approached personally by reporters on the street, and one
(05:06):
was confronted in front of her nine year old son
by a reporter asking for her to comment about being
an Epstein victim. And anybody who's trying to chase these
women down stop it. If they want to talk, they'll talk.
If they don't want to talk, well leave them the
fuck alone. The situation is already dire. We have diligently
and repeatedly brought this issue to Congress, and the source
(05:28):
of the problem, we are told, lies with the Department
of Justice. There remain dozens of women whose names were
shared improperly in the latest House Oversight document upload, who
are not yet aware that their privacy has been violated
and that they have been put at risk by the
Department of Justice, for example, and proceeding with intentional caution.
(05:49):
Given the public attention to the matter, There is one document,
in particular, that was provided to the House Oversight Committee
by the Department of Justice, wherein the names of at
least twenty eight victims left unredacted, including individuals who were
minor children at the time of the abuse and women
who have been afforded protection in other courtrooms in this
(06:09):
jurisdiction as a result of grave public safety concerns. While
we will detail the various excuses that the court will
no doubt be provided, this is absolutely unacceptable in a
problem that must be rectified prior to the public release
of any additional documents. As a result of these numerous
flagrant violations, Undersigned has been in near constant communication with
(06:34):
the House Oversight Committee Majority, the House Oversight Committee Minority,
the House Judiciary Committee, the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein, and
various members of the United States House of Representatives and
the United States Senate since Congress began issuing document subpoenas
and continuing through the recent passage of the Epstein Files
Transparency Act on November nineteenth, twenty twenty five. Notwithstanding, and
(06:58):
despite numerous pleas for assistance, there is one singular entity
that the victims cannot seem to find a way to
engage and which has been the primary violator of the
victim's identity protection thus far, the Department of Justice, by
way of background for the Court. The process that led
these unmistakable violations of the victim's rights and to the
(07:20):
broken promises of protection made to the victims by Congress
begins with the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein and the Department
of Justice and ends with the House Oversight Committee. Our
understanding is that the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein provides a
redacted version of all documents to the House Oversight Committee,
and that the Department of Justice does the same. The
(07:41):
House Oversite Committee then relies on the redactions of the
former to be accurate and post those redacted documents to
the public domain. The few eras in redactions in the
Estate documents seem to have been genuine mistakes that were
made by redaction software. Given that even mistakes can have
grave common consequences in the lives of victims, we are
(08:02):
engaging the Estate on the issue and hope to reach
a victim centered solution. Of much greater concern is the
redaction process, or complete lack thereof being applied by the
Department of Justice with no direct understanding of the process,
and only comparing unredacted documents in our possession with the
redacted versions provided by the DOJ to Congress, it appears
(08:25):
that the DOJ has sent a very short list of
victims whose identities were redacted in certain documents in the
US versus Maxwell case, whose names were likewise redacted in
its production, leaving all others completely unredacted. Given the number
of times we have drawn Congress's attention to the issue
and the fact that victims' names continue to be produced
(08:48):
by DOJ in unredacted form, many of the victims believe
this is being done intentionally, regardless of how we arrived
here prior to the release by the DOJ of any
grand jury material or any other Epstein related files for
that matter. This is an issue that must be addressed
directly with the Department of Justice, and this honorable Court
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has provided our only plausible vehicle for doing so at
this juncture, as made clear by the DOJS and proper
releases to oversight. Thus far, the problem is either one
the Department of Justice does not know the identities of
all the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and thus cannot apply
proper redactions to the files or to the Department of
(09:32):
Justice is intentionally failing to protect victims from public exposure. Optimistically,
assuming the former, it's not possible for the Department of
Justice to properly redact the names of victims without our
assistance or the assistance of individuals who work personally on
the criminal or civil Epstein related cases. Given our two
(09:53):
decades of investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell, DOJ
simply does not and can do not have the same
level of knowledge that we do with respect to the
identity of the victims, though reasoning behind this is trifled. One,
the two thousand and six Southern District of Florida investigation
into Jeffrey Epstein focused only on his minor child victims
(10:15):
in Florida. Two, Jeffrey Epstein died during the course of
the two thousand and eight Southern District of New York investigation,
which focused only on his minor child victims in Florida
and New York. And three, the Southern District of New
York investigation into Glenn Maxwell focused solely on the subset
of victims which were relevant to our involvement in the
(10:37):
abuse in each of those investigations. Through legal counsel, and
even unbeknownst to the undersigned, for many years, Jeffrey Epstein
was able to use lawyers that he paid for to
silence certain victims who could have served as critical witnesses.
This was done without their knowledge and despite their desire
to be freed from his chains of control and abuse.
(10:59):
For example, the Department of Justice included three young women
as co conspirators in Jeffrey Epstein's two thousand and seven
non prosecution agreement without their consent or knowledge, without ever
once interviewing or speaking with them directly, and without ever
learning during the course of that initial investigation that each
of those women had themselves been subjected by horrific sexual
(11:22):
abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, these women cooperated with
the Department of Justice during the New York investigations, and
unlike Glain Maxwell, these women were not prosecuted because once
their stories were heard, it was clear that they two
were victims more pertinent to the breath of the problem here.
(11:42):
None of the investigations conducted by the Department of Justice
ever focused on the young American adult women who were
victimized through fraud force and coercion, or the international trafficking
operation that Jeffrey Epstein was running, involving exploitation an abuse
of young but not minor women, including those from nearly
every Eastern European country. Like I've been telling you for
(12:04):
how long. To be clear, there are hundreds of women
who were internationally trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. We represent women
from Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Belarus, Sweden, England,
and France, to name only a few. Most of these
women have never spoken with the DOJ nor the Department
(12:26):
of Justice ever interested in speaking with them during any
act of investigation, given that Epstein was never prosecuted or
investigated for the international crimes that he committed, likely because
he died in prison before the government learned of that
element of his trafficking scheme. Nonetheless, with respect to these women,
Epstein engaged in extensive immigration fraud, executed illegally internationally transport
(12:52):
aspiring young models into the country, where he would hold
their visas in companies that he created and their passports
in his possession, so that they could not escape and
so that he was able to control and essentially enslave them.
We appreciate the Department of Justice July twenty twenty five
representation that it has confirmed that Epstein harmed over one
(13:13):
thousand victims and that each has suffered unique trauma. On
the basis of that representation, we asked the Court to
confirm with the DOJ that the prior to releasing files
to the House Oversight Committee, it undertook the onerous and
necessary task of redacting all one thousand plus victim names
that it had in its possession when that statement was released.
(13:36):
On that point, at inquiry, the Court will learn that
the DOJ's redaction process and its process efforts are so
irreconcilable with the number of victims it has publicly acknowledged
that when confronted with the discrepancy, its response will land
somewhere between incoherent mumbling non sequitur and outright misrepresentation. We
(13:59):
asked the Court to ordure that the Department of Justice
reaffirm its commitment to make sure all victim identifying information
is redacted, subject to sanction for any failure prior to
allowing for the release of a single page of grand
jury material containing victim information and prior to releasing any
additional documents containing victim information to the House Oversight Committee
(14:22):
or any other entity that could lead to public disclosure.
We ask the court to order that the DOJ meet
in confidence with the undersigned, so that a list of
victims in our possession, including over three hundred women with
whom we have or have had contact with, be transmitted
in a precisely secure manner to ensure that those women
(14:44):
are protected from future harm to the extent that they
are not already included within the thousand women identified by
the Department of Justice. Our request is simple, that the
identity of all the victims be protected, and our promise
is to help facilitate that protect in whatever way is
possible or necessary. These women aren't political pawns their mothers,
(15:06):
wives and daughters. These are women who were abused by
Jeffrey Epstein and in some instances by others, and who
have already had their rights violated in the past by
the government. They are human beings who have the right
to be treated with dignity and respect, and to feel
safe and protected by our country, which has failed them
(15:27):
time and time again. The intention of the Epstein Transparency
Act it is quite frankly mind boggling to be back
in front of the court on the issue of the
grand jury materials, as if these materials are in some
way the lynchpin to the investigation or representative of what
Congress expects the Department of Justice to produce pursuant to
(15:47):
the Epstein Files Transparency Act. As explained by Judge Richard Berman,
the information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts peals
in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and material in
the hands of the DOJ. It's obvious that those knowledgeable
of the legal system that the DOJ is using this
(16:08):
motion to attempt to trick the American people into believing
that it intends to provide full transparency. The only thing
thus far transparent about DOJ's actions is its intent to
deceive the American people, a fact that has been called
out by two separate courts. As this court astutely observed,
a member of the public appreciating that the Maxwell grand
(16:28):
jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might
conclude that the government's motion for their unsealing was aimed
not at transparency but at diversion aim not a full disclosure,
but at the illusion of such. The Epstein Files consist
of the totality of the investigations completed by one Southern
(16:49):
District of Florida from two thousand and six to two
thousand and eight, two Southern District of New York into
Jeffrey Epstein from twenty eighteen to nineteen and three into
Glenn Maxwell from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one, highlighting
the magnitude of the problem and utter lack of transparency.
To date, the Department of Justice has never released even
(17:10):
the most basic of investigative materials pertaining to the very
first investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, including the fifty three page
indictment or the eighty two page prosecution memorandum that were
prepared by assisting US Attorney Marie Villafuna in two thousand
and seven in the Southern District of Florida. Notwithstanding, within
(17:31):
these files as a whole, stemming across three investigations and
two jurisdictions, there are dozens of FBI three zero twos
generated in each of the three investigations, hundreds of thousands
of pages a document seized from electronic devices located within
Epstein and presumably Maxwell's various homes, all other material discovered
(17:52):
during the various raids, information on nearly one hundred companies
created by Jeffrey Epstein and his team of professionals, and
a plethora of financial records, as confirmed in the DOJS
July twenty twenty five press release, after conducting an exhaustive
review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein, including digital
(18:14):
searches of its database, hard drives, and network drives, as
well as physical searches of squad areas, lock cabinets, desks, closets,
and other areas where responsive materials may have been stored.
These searches uncovered a significant amount of material, including more
than three hundred gigabytes of data and physical evidence. DOJ
(18:37):
then indicated that none of that information would be released
because included within the information was crimes against children and
sexual abuse material. With the passage of the Epstein Files
Transparency Act, we now expect most of this information to
be redacted and released, with of course, the exception of
all CP sexual abuse material, pornographic material, and victim identifying materials,
(19:02):
all of which are explicitly excluded from disclosure by the Act.
While the purposes of This response is simply to ask
the Court's assistance in ensuring that the victim's names and
identifying information are protected from the public discourse in accordance
with the previous direction of this Honorable Court, the Honorable
Judge Berman's Court, the Honorable Judge Marra's Court, the US
(19:25):
Crime Victim's Rights Act, and the US States Congress through
the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Undersigned, will be remiss not
to remind the Court that this country should expect far
more from the Department of Justice than this incredibly small
and largely irrelevant subset of grand jury materials that seem
to serve as nothing more than the DOJ's perpetual distraction
(19:48):
from providing the American people with full transparency as it
relates to Jeffrey Epstein while protecting the victims Codified victim
protection In the United States of America, all crime victims
have rights pursuant to the Crime Victim's Rights Act, including,
but not limited to, the right to be treated with
fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and privacy. Furthermore,
(20:14):
pursuant HR forty four oh five, the Epstein Files Transparency
Act two see permitted withholdings one, the Attorney General may
withhold or addact the segrable portions of records that a
contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims personal and
medical files, and similar files, the disclosure of which would
(20:37):
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Based on
the language of the law, there is no justifiable reason
for any document to ever be released by the Department
of Justice without first redacting the name or personally identifiable
information of all victims. More than a handful of our
courageous survivors stood on Capitol Hill alongside lawmakers and fervens
(21:00):
support of this legislation, steadfast in their commitment to transparency.
But what the world has not yet seen and will
hopefully never see, are the dozens upon dozens of survivors
who chose to support them from the shadows, overwhelmed by
constant fear of exposure, reprisal, and revictimization. That is what
(21:20):
matters here. Choice. The women were deprived of choice when
their childhoods were stolen from them by heinous sexual abuse,
When their early adult dreams of dancing or advancing their
education or careers were shattered by rape, and for the
women abroad when their lifelong desire to emigrate to the
safety in the US as models became permanently tethered to
(21:41):
sexual exploitation, the acceptance of which became their lifeline. These
women now begged the court and begged the United States
Department of Justice to allow them to choose to remain protected.
They asked that their names and the names of all
survivors be redacted in any files that are provided to
Congress or to the public by the Department of Justice.
(22:04):
Those victims who wish to expose themselves can make that
personal choice after the files have been released. We hereby
request that this court or any other court choose to
unseal grand jury material. The unsealing be done with redactions
to protect all victims of Jeffrey Epstein, in consultation with
the undersigned Council, to ensure that the Department of Justice
(22:26):
is in possession of the identities of all verified victims.
Further to the extent that this request is within the
jurisdiction of the court. Undersign requests that the Department of
Justice be ordered to one consult with Undersigned to obtain
a confidential list of over three hundred victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Two,
that the list containing the identities of victims be forever
(22:48):
protected from public disclosure in compliance with the Crime Victims
Rights Act and codified by US Code eighteen, Section thirty
seven seventy one, and three. That this Court retained jurisdiction
to impose sanctions on the Department of Justice if, after
this Court's order, DOJ continues to disseminate the identities of
(23:09):
victims unredacted. Very truly, Yours, Edwards Henderson, PLLLC. All of
the information that goes with this episode can be found
in the description box.
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