A new batch of court documents identifying associates of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has revealed the names of several prominent figures.
Former US Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Michael Jackson, and David Copperfield have been named in the documents. However, it needs to be noted that not all of them have been linked to wrongdoing. They were reportedly part of Epstein's famous and influential circle.
Epstein, who was arrested in July 2019 on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, was found hanged in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial. The unsealed documents contain 1,000 pages of depositions and statements. The documents also reveal that Clinton had reportedly flown on Epstein's private plane.
Johanna Sjoberg, who had accused Epstein in her 2016 deposition, said that he "said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls".
Clinton's spokesperson denied having any involvement with Epstein in a statement in 2019. He notably had an affair with his 22-year-old intern, Monica Lewinsky, during his first term as president. He was 49 years old at the time.
Donald Trump was also named in the documents but was not accused of wrongdoing. Sjoberg said in her deposition that they had once gone to one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City, per The Guardian.
She also allegedly met Prince Andrew at Epstein's New York home. "Ghislaine asked me to come to a closet. She just said, Come with me. We went to a closet and grabbed the puppet, the puppet of Prince Andrew," she said in the deposition.
"And I knew it was Prince Andrew because I had recognized him as a person. I didn't know who he was. And so when I saw the tag that said Prince Andrew, then it clicked. I'm like, that's who it is".
"I just remember someone suggesting a photo, and they told us to go get on the couch. And so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the puppet, the puppet on her lap," Sjoberg added.
"And so then I sat on Andrew's lap, and I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet's hands and put it on Virginia's breast, and so Andrew put his on mine."
Prince Andrew quit public life in 2019 because of his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Queen Elizabeth II stripped him of his royal patronages and military titles in January 2022 following allegations of rape and sexual abuse by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, which he has since settled out of court.
The unsealed documents were part of a 2015 lawsuit by victim Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, a British socialite, was convicted in 2021 of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
Giuffre also claimed that Clinton once arrived on the Caribbean island of Little St. James with a woman on each arm. The former US president has been named 73 times in the documents, Prince Andrew 67 times, and Maxwell appears over 200 times.
