Judge rules Epstein documents in court case will stay sealed _ for now
MIAMI _ Who helped the pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein abuse scores of young women?
Although Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail last summer, a list of names of wealthy and well-connected people who may have helped him commit his crimes lives on. The possible enablers could be named in a batch of sealed court documents filed in a civil lawsuit between one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who is said to have procured him vulnerable, underage victims.
Now a federal judge has decided that some of those documents will remain sealed _ for now.
At question are motions in the case that were never decided by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet.
A federal appeals court ruled last year that motions upon which Sweet had passed judgment should be unsealed.
But U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska concluded that the undecided motions, in contrast, were not "judicial documents subject to the presumption of public access" and should remain under seal. (Sweet died last year.)
_ Miami Herald
