Leonardo DiCaprio, Donald Trump, and Michael Jackson are among the high-profile names that emerged in a lawsuit involving Jeffrey Epstein, a late financier who killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. Before and after he was exposed as a pedophile, Epstein loved to mingle with the world's elite.
Epstein invited celebrities, political top-notch, and academics to his private island and luxury homes. He offered celebrities rides on his private jet. He and his girlfriend, the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, hung out with princes and supermodels. Maxwell was accused by multiple women of helping Epstein recruit underage victims. She was later prosecuted and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Now, the Newly released court records have revved up interest again in the big names who associated with Epstein and Maxwell. Many of those people have never been accused of any wrongdoing, but have nonetheless become the subject of a whirlwind of conspiracy theories.
Some have denied claims made by one of Epstein's victims — Virginia Giuffre — that they participated in illicit sex.
Among the most sensational names in the document is Britain's Prince Andrew, who was a longtime friend of Maxwell's and continued visiting Epstein even after his imprisonment in Florida for a sex crime. Virginia Giuffre sued the prince in 2021, claiming that when she was 17 she had sex with him multiple times at Maxwell's request. Giuffre and Andrew settled the lawsuit in 2022.
As per the documents, former US President Bill Clinton flew several times on Epstein’s private jet. Epstein's victim Johanna Sjoberg testified in her deposition that, while she never met Clinton, Epstein once remarked to her that “Clinton likes them young.” Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing, though, by any of Epstein's victims.
The court document briefly mentions the name of former US President Donald Trump who socialised with Epstein but is not accused of misconduct.
The new records include a single reference to the late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. His name appears, misspelled, in an email Epstein sent proposing a reward be paid to anyone who could debunk a baseless claim that Hawking had participated in “an underage orgy.”
According to victim Sjoberg, she met pop star Michael Jackson at Epstein's Florida home but didn’t give him a massage.
Sjoberg met American magician David Copperfield at a dinner at Epstein’s house and recalled him performing “some magic tricks.”
“He questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls,” she said, referring to Copperfield, during a 2016 deposition. She didn’t accuse him of criminal conduct.
American billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Russell Dubin's name has also appeared in hundred-page documents related to Epstein and Maxwell's sex racket. Giuffre said in a deposition that Maxwell “told me to go to Glenn Dubin and give him a massage, which means sex.”
Dubin has said he has flight records and other evidence proving Giuffre's allegations against him are false.
Giuffre also claimed she was pressured to have sex with former US ambassador and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Richardson, who died last year, previously said that Giuffre’s claims were fabricated.
Former Epstein attorney and retired Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz's name was also found in the court recording. Giuffre had long accused Dershowitz of sexually abusing her a half-dozen times in Florida, New York, New Mexico, and the US Virgin Islands. But Giuffre withdrew her claim against Dershowitz in 2022, saying she “ may have made a mistake ” in identifying him as one of the men she had sex with at the request of Epstein or Maxwell.
The court also contained fleeting references to Leslie Wexner, the retail titan behind Victoria's Secret, The Limited, and other store chains. Epstein had managed Wexner's money for years, but their relationship soured following Epstein's 2006 arrest in Florida and jail term for paying an underage girl for a sexual act.
The French modeling agent and close friend of Epstein killed himself in Paris in 2022 while awaiting trial on charges that he raped underage girls. Brunel was accused by Giuffre and others of using promises of modeling work to induce people, including minors, into sexual encounters.
Sjoberg spoke about Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Bruce Willis and Cameron Diaz during her deposition but none of them are accused of wrongdoing.
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