The names of some people who may have associated with the late Jeffrey Epstein have been released as part of a wider document release on Wednesday afternoon.
Scripps News is reviewing hundreds of pages of documents that are said to contain some 150 names, many of them said to be high-profile, including those of former princes as well as former presidents.
Scripps News is reviewing all the documents before publishing specific names, in order to deliver the proper context around their appearance.
The names released Wednesday are not part of a collected list, but rather appear in various documents related to a lawsuit against Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sued by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, in 2015.
In released transcripts, Giuffre is asked repeatedly about specific named people who Ghislaine Maxwell directed her to sleep with.
The release includes an interview with Maxwell, in which she is asked to characterize her relationship with Epstein and discuss specific work she did on his behalf. She is asked to discuss specifically where events took place.
Prosecutors asked specific questions about underage girls who were brought into homes.
Being named in the documents is not an indication of wrongdoing. The Associated Press reports that names in the records include people who accused Epstein, members of his staff who spoke to newspapers, and even other people who investigated Epstein previously, including a journalist and a detective.
The judge gave those being newly named an opportunity to appeal the release, and delayed the unsealing of two names associated with the case until at least Jan. 22.
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Giuffre's suit against Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the Miami Herald went to court to unseal more records associated with the suit. Some records have previously been released in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
The records unsealed Wednesday remained sealed until now due to concerns over privacy rights of victims and of other people whose names were brought up in the case, but who had not been accused of wrongdoing or being complicit in crimes.
U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska said in December she was unsealing the records because much of the information within them was already public. Some information from the sealed records has already been released in other court cases.
The judge said that some names listed as being associated with Epstein have already had those relationships thoroughly investigated.
