A second tranche of legal filings stemming from the defamation lawsuit between Jeffrey Epstein’s victim Virginia Giuffre and his fixer has been unsealed.
Thursday’s release contained no new names but provided insight into the claims that attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell and Ms Giuffre made to discredit the other party before the suit was settled in 2017.
Among the documents unsealed was a motion by Maxwell’s attorneys to seek a subpoena for testimony from a journalist by the name of Sharon Churcher, who they accused of helping Ms Giuffre “fabricate stories” regarding high-profile figures including Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew.
The attorneys requested that Ms Churcher produce any interview notes and recordings from an article she wrote about Ms Giuffre’s allegations. Maxwell’s defence claimed that Ms Churcher did not act as an impartial third party, but that she was a “co-conspirator in Plaintiff’s publication of false statements”. They also accused Ms Churcher of instructing Ms Giuffre to write a “false diary” recounting alleged sexual abuse by Mr Dershowitz and Prince Andrew.
Ms Churcher denied the allegations and threatened legal action against The Independent for reporting on those claims.
“The claims are defamatory and absurd,” she said in a statement.
Mr Dershowitz and Prince Andrew have previously denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring before it became public, and have also denied ever having sex with an underage Ms Giuffre.
Following accusations by Ms Giuffre that she had been trafficked to have sex with Mr Dershowitz, contentious legal battles between the pair rumbled on for the next three years. In November 2022, Ms Giuffre admitted that she may have made a mistake in identifying Mr Dershowitz as one of her abusers. Lawsuits were then dismissed on both sides.
Prince Andrew was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexual assault by Ms Giuffre and agreed to pay a seven-figure settlement. He has strongly maintained his innocence.
Mr Dershowitz on Thursday filed a motion seeking the release of the documents following a request by the Miami Herald newspaper.
“They relate to credibility – and lack thereof – of some accusers and some accused. I have seen these suppressed documents. Nothing should be suppressed,” he said.
Here are the key takeaways from Thursday’s release:
Reporter raised allegations against Dershowitz
When asked by Ms Giuffre if she had “any information on [men]” Epstein sent Ms Giuffre to, Ms Churcher replied in a 2011 email: “Don’t forget Alan Dershowitz... JE’s buddy and lawyer – good name for your pitch as he repped Claus von Bulow and a movie was made about that case ... title was Reversal of Fortune.”
The email continued: “We all suspect Alan is a pedo and tho no proof of that, you probably met him when he was hanging ... w JE.”
After the first trove of documents was released on Wednesday, Mr Dershowitz once again denied ever having sex with underage girls. He claimed his relationship with Epstein was merely professional, and that he had only accepted occasional plane rides on the convicted paedophile’s private jet before he was aware of the extent of Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring.
Ghislaine Maxwell claimed a journalist helped ‘concoct’ allegations against the Duke of York (US Department of Justice/PA)— (PA Media)
In a discussion about a potential interview with Vanity Fair, Ms Giuffre told Ms Churcher via email that her story had to be “carefully written” so as to not “give any notions about the upcoming book.” Ms Giuffre went on to claim that Mr Clinton had once walked into the VF (Vanity Fair) office building threatening reporters against writing “sex trafficking stories” about Epstein.
Graydon Carter, a former longtime editor at the magazine, told The DailyTelegraph that the incident never took place. There are no other reports or evidence to substantiate the claims raised by Ms Giuffre in her email.
“This categorically did not happen,” Mr Carter said.
Mr Clinton was mentioned in a deposition unsealed on Wednesday, in which Johana Sjoberg said that Epstein had told Mr Clinton liked girls “young”. A spokesperson for Mr Clinton issued a fresh denial of any ties between that former president and Epstein on Thursday.
“...it’s been nearly 20 years since President Clinton last had contact with Epstein,” the statement to PEOPLE read.
Jeffrey Epstein, left, is pictured with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in this undated photo.— (Netflix)
In a continuation of the 2011 email thread, Ms Churcher advised Ms Giuffre that she should accept a request by Vanity Fair to purchase the infamous picture of Prince Andrew wrapping his arm around her.
“l would let VF buy your picture via [Ms Giuffre’s attorney],” Ms Churcher answered in her email. “The big gamble would be to let him also give them a statement saying your interviews with us were accurately reported and you have no more to say at this time how you were “sex trafficked” to PA and other men including two of the world’s most respected politcians ([redacted] and [redacted])...”
Elsewhere in their motion, Maxwell’s attorneys claimed that Churcher volunteered to be present while Ms Giuffre spoke to federal officials, and gave her advice on what literary agent Ms Giuffre should pick for her book deal.
The details were alleged in a response, filed in 22 June 2016, to a motion by Ms Churcher to quash a subpoena request in the lawsuit.
Days later on 28 June 2016, Ms Giuffre’s attorneys filed a new court document – a response to a separate defence motion seeking to sanction Ms Giuffre for failure to comply with a court order.
The allegations surrounding Ms Churcher were not referred to in the response though Ms Giuffre’s attorneys claimed that: “As more and more witnesses come forward testifying about Defendant’s involvement in the sexual abuse of young girls, Defendant’s discovery arguments have become more removed from the merits of this case and increasingly strident in their tone”.
‘I am here to get this BS non-prosecution agreement thrown out’
Email chains between Ms Giuffre and federal investigators also showed that, in 2014, she reached out to FBI agents inquiring about material seized during the initial investigation that led to Epstein’s 2008 plea deal on charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting.
“I am here to get this BS non-prosecution agreement thrown out and speaking w Judge Paul Cassal he suggested trying to get ahold of any photos and/or video recordings released by the FBI to assist our case further in proving how much pedophilia occurred by Jeffrey and the many other monsters he obliged w underage girls,” Ms Giuffre wrote.
The late Jeffrey Epstein with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty of child sex trafficking (US Department of Justice/PA)— (PA Media)
Ms Giuffre’s former boyfriend claimed Maxwell asked him to recruit young girls
Ms Giuffre’s former boyfriend Anthony Figueroa claimed in a deposition that Ms Maxwell had repeatedly asked him to bring underage girls to Epstein’s home in Palm Beach.
“Pretty much [I saw Maxwell] take them up stairs then I would leave. I would wait for them to be like, ‘we’re ready,’” he said in the deposition. “And I would be, ‘All right, see you later.’ And I would leave.”
Also unsealed on Thursday were incident reports from the initial police investigation into Epstein's crimes in Palm Beach in 2006. The reports contain accounts by underage Epstein victims of the abuse they endured at the hands of the disgraced financier and gruelling descriptions of the sexual massages he requested.
Maxwell trial court images Jeffrey Epstein’s West Palm Beach home. Picture: US Department of Justice— (US Department of Justice)
Being identified in the court documents does not necessarily mean an individual was involved in or aware of any wrongdoing by Epstein.
Ms Giuffre first brought the civil case against Maxwell in 2015 after a spokesperson for the former socialite called Ms Giuffre’s allegations “obvious lies”. The suit helped consolidate the criminal case against Maxwell, who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison on five charges of sex trafficking minor girls. She has since appealed her conviction.
However, hundreds of names included in the Giuffre v Maxwell lawsuit remained under seal. The Miami Herald, whose investigation into Epstein led to his arrest in 2019, first sued in 2018 for the release of all documents related to the lawsuit.
The first set of those documents was unsealed on 9 August 2019, just a day before Epstein killed himself in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
More documents are expected to be released in the upcoming days.
