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Epstein papers leave questions about what powerful men knew about his crimes

The new trove of documents linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which was released by a federal court over the past two weeks, didn't unmask any major public figures or include shocking revelations.

But the documents include claims from Epstein's alleged victims who say prominent men who socialized with Epstein must have known what was going on and failed to blow the whistle — even if they didn't engage in criminal behavior themselves.

"If you walked foot into Jeffrey Epstein's house and you went in there and you continued to be an acquaintance of his then you would have to know what was going on there," Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's alleged victims, testified in a newly revealed 2016 deposition.

"I would say the first time they came to [Epstein's home] there is nude pictures everywhere. These are [photographs of] salacious acts of girls, young girls doing things to each other that would be considered child pornography," she added.

Those named in the Epstein documents include former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Maine Sen. George Mitchell, and Harvard professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz, among many others.

The fact that an individual is named or that they socialized with Epstein does not indicate wrongdoing. But the documents raise questions about who knew what about Epstein's activity.

At one point in testimony made public for the first time, Giuffre said former President Bill Clinton was among the men aware of Epstein's activity:

"Yes, he would be a witness because he knew what my purpose there was for Jeffrey and he visited Jeffrey's island," she said, adding that sexual activity involving girls was "something that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't shy about admitting to people."

Photographs have emerged of Clinton receiving a neck massage at an airport from a young woman who now describes herself as one of Epstein's victims.

But in a 2019 statement, Clinton — who is named frequently in the documents --- said he never visited Epstein's private island in the Virgin Islands and "knew nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida."

Angel Ureña, a spokesman for Clinton, said it had been nearly 20 years since Clinton last had contact with Epstein and that the former president has never been accused of any wrongdoing.

In separate sworn depositions, alleged victim Sarah Ransome said Epstein was transparent about trafficking girls to visitors who came to his home in New York City and his private island in the Virgin Islands.

"There were various buildings around the island ... like little shelter things, where him and his guests used to have sex with the girls, like beds set up for instant sexual entertainment," Ransome said in 2017.

"At his town house [in New York] I was also lent out by him to his friends and associates to have sex," she alleged under oath.

At least one public figure, former President Donald Trump, has acknowledged in a 2002 interview being aware that Epstein "liked beautiful women...on the younger side."

Trump, who is also named in the documents and acknowledged being friends with Epstein for "fifteen years" has said he did nothing wrong and knew nothing of Epstein's criminal behavior.

In an interview this week with NPR, Harvard law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was friends with Epstein and represented him, said Epstein kept his predatory behavior carefully closeted.

"Did any of us know what was going on? I can't vouch for other people. I can only tell you, I didn't know," he said.

"That was shocking that could have happened without us knowing, without us seeing, because as you say there were so many people around them."

Federal prosecutors now say Epstein, who worked for decades as a private financier for a secretive list of wealthy clients before taking his own life in a federal jail in 2019, operated sex-trafficking ring, which at times involved minors, from 1994 until at least 2004.

He allegedly developed a scheme to identify and exploit "dozens" of vulnerable girls and young women, some as young as 14 years old. His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is currently serving a 2o-year sentence for perpetrating what U.S. Attorney Damian Williams called "heinous crimes against children."

Dershowitz, who denies any wrongdoing, acknowledges being close to Epstein from 1996 through 2008, describing visits to Epstein's homes as well as phone conversations and meetings at social and professional gatherings.

He worked on the high-powered legal team that crafted a controversial deal in 2008 allowing Epstein avoid federal charges.

Epstein instead pleaded guilty to relatively minor state-level prostitution charges in Florida and was allowed to serve most of his 18-month sentence in a work-release program.

Dershowitz told NPR he now believes Epstein did engage in criminal, abusive behavior, and says their personal relationship ended after 2008. But he says he saw no red flags involving young women while they were socializing.

"One of my sons said, 'Stay away from this guy, I don't like him financially," Dershowitz recalled, referring to the financial and consulting services Epstein provided to clients. "But nobody warned me about anything having to do with sex."

"You would have to be blind not to know"

In 2016 testimony, revealed in the new documents, Giuffre offers a different narrative, saying under oath that Dershowitz was one of the powerful men present at social events where it was obvious that young women like herself were vulnerable.

Giuffre: The only thing I can say to that is that there were minors around and did Dershowitz know that Jeffrey Epstein was using these minors for sexual purposes, yes, he did.

Q. How do you know that?

Giuffre: How do I know what he knew, because he was around Jeffrey Epstein so many times that you would have to be blind to not know what Jeffrey Epstein was doing.

Asked by NPR about those statements, Dershowitz described Giuffre as unreliable and said claims by her and Ransome that he had sexual encounters with them were false.

Dershowitz pointed to the fact Giuffre has since expressed uncertainty about her claims that she had met and had sex with him.

Asked more broadly by NPR how he and others could have missed signs Epstein and Maxwell were abusive to young women, Dershowitz said Epstein "kept his private life completely secret."

"I regret having ever met him. I think it was the worst thing that ever happened in my life meeting him," Dershowitz said.

Asked about his role as an attorney, helping Epstein avoid more serious federal criminal charges for trafficking underage girls, Dershowitz said he acted professionally:

"I don't know how I could have done anything different. That's just in my wheelhouse, what I do. I regret the outcome, of course, I regret having ever met him, but I can't say I feel guilty about anything I did."

After that deal was struck, Epstein, a registered sex offender, continued to live freely for years. According to an investigation published last month by The Wall Street Journal, he continued his practice of traveling to meetings with powerful men in the company of young women.

There's no evidence that at any point any of the men who interacted with Epstein raised concerns about his behavior with authorities.

In 2019, after the Miami Herald published an expose about Epstein, he was finally arrested on federal sex trafficking charges. He took his own life in jail while awaiting trial.

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Epstein list brings a frenzy of Clinton and Trump conspiracies

The furor over the Epstein sex trafficking case feeds into a mistrust of elites

Less than an hour before a trove of papers related to sex trafficking financier Jeffrey Epstein was unsealed Wednesday night, former President Donald Trump’s niece and longtime antagonist Mary Trump sent out a blast email titled “REVEALED: My Uncle & Epstein’s List” to her nearly 140,000 newsletter followers.  

But, much like the release of Epstein documents this week, Mary Trump’s post revealed little.  

Instead, the bestselling author rehashed the former president’s onetime friendship with Epstein and mentioned an unnamed woman who had made lurid abuse claims against Donald Trump before withdrawing her case.

At the other end of the dial, popular conservative commentator Glenn Beck told his 450,000 paid subscribers that “we know Bill Clinton’s mentioned 50 times” in the Epstein documents, while failing to note that the prominent Democrat’s name appeared repeatedly because of a legal argument over a witness’ truthfulness – and not because of any new claims of wrongdoing by Clinton. 

The release of the long-anticipated Epstein files by a Manhattan federal judge has sparked a feeding frenzy by hardcore partisans and conspiracy theorists, fueled in part by misinformation and internet fakes – another example of surging political paranoia and mistrust as the U.S. enters a high-stakes election year, experts say. 

Hoping for ‘the next big thing’ to bring down political enemies

“There’s a word for it: hopium,” said Mike Rothschild, an author who researches conspiracy movements. “It's this addictive hope that that the next big thing is going to come and – forget about all the failures – this is going to be the thing that finally brings down your enemy, whether your enemy is liberal or conservative.”  

“That strain of unshakable belief," he said, ''it's a very human thing.”

As the release of the documents neared, speculation of what − and who − they might expose reached a boil. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said he expected to see congressional colleagues revealed as friends of Epstein. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel threatened to sue New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers for suggesting on ESPN that Kimmel would be named in the papers. (He wasn't.)

Red meat for haters of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump

The “Epstein list,” and the scandal surrounding the multimillionaire’s exploitation of teenage girls, offers plenty of red meat for partisans on the right and left.  

Trump and Epstein were filmed and photographed together at parties, and in 2002 he praised the wealthy businessman as a "terrific guy.” 

“He’s a lot of fun to be with," Trump told New York Magazine. "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." 

Clinton, like Trump, appears on flight logs for Epstein’s private jet. Clinton’s spokesman said in 2019, after Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, that the former president had flown on Epstein’s jet to destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia.  

Both Clinton and Trump said after the 2019 arrest they were unaware of Epstein’s crimes and hadn’t spoken to him for more than a decade. Trump told reporters in the White House the two had fallen out. “I was not a fan,” he said.  

And testimony in the papers released this week has discredited claims that Clinton was ever a guest at Epstein’s private 70-acre Caribbean Island, which he has always denied. But that hasn’t stopped social media personalities with huge audiences from stitching either Clinton or Trump – depending on the poster’s sympathy – to Epstein’s side. 

Trump – despite his own partying with Epstein – helped drive the island narrative, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015: “Bill Clinton? Nice guy. A lot of problems coming up in the famous island with Epstein." Donald Trump Jr. boosted those claims this week in a post that received 2.7 million views. 

The 'Epstein list' and Epstein conspiracies

Both former presidents have been accused of sexual misconduct. Clinton was impeached in 1998 over his affair with a White House intern. In May, a jury in a federal civil lawsuit found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in damages. He has appealed.

By Thursday afternoon, ahead of the release of another batch of Epstein documents, popular social media accounts were claiming that an Iowa school shooting earlier that same day had been staged to divert attention from potentially embarrassing disclosures in the Epstein papers.   

That conspiracy theory points to a broader, and less partisan, mistrust of American elites and the conviction that powerful people will do anything to cover their tracks. 

“I think there is the perception that Epstein ran in these rarefied circles, elites of society, of arts, and politics, culture, royalty – and that most of them somehow knew something about what was going on, didn't say anything, didn't do anything,” said Rothschild, the author of "Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories." “A lot of what's happening is this guilt by association, that anybody who had anything to do with Epstein is also linked to the worst things Epstein did.” 

On Thursday, Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who was pivotal in bringing Epstein down, took on her colleagues in the news media for downplaying the new documents.

“The way the Mainstream media is dismissing the Jeffrey Epstein files reminds me how it pretty much ignored the fact that Epstein molested dozens of girls in 2008 because, well, there was no proof,” Brown wrote on X (formerly Twitter), adding, “nothing here behind the curtain to examine, right?” 

Brown was referring to a 2008 sweetheart deal that allowed Epstein to serve 13 months in a Florida jail on a single count of soliciting a minor for prostitution, ending a federal investigation in which he faced a potential life sentence. The prosecutor who signed off on that deal, Alex Acosta, later served in Trump’s Cabinet as U.S. labor secretary.  

How did Jeffrey Epstein die?

Even Epstein’s 2019 death by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell has been spun as a murder instigated by either Clinton or Trump to cover up his crimes.  

On Wednesday, Mary Trump referred to Epstein as having “allegedly committed suicide,” despite an investigation showing how lax supervision allowed Epstein to kill himself. Donald Trump, while president, retweeted a conservative poster's claim that Epstein had somehow been murdered by the Clintons – while in a federal detention center operated by Trump’s Justice Department. 

Still: Someone was likely abusing children alongside Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein is dead and Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Every other prominent person who has been alleged in civil court proceedings to have joined in Epstein’s crimes – a list that notably doesn’t include either Clinton or Trump – has denied it, and no one else has been prosecuted.

“The public interest must still be served in learning more about the scale and scope of Epstein's racket to further the important goal of shutting down sex trafficking wherever it exists and holding more to account,” Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for one of Epstein’s victims, said this week. “The unsealing of these documents gets us closer to that goal.” 

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Names in Jeffrey Epstein court documents unsealed

New York federal court documents containing previously hidden names of people associated in some way with the late notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein began being unsealed Wednesday evening.

Many of the more than 150 people named in the civil court filings that are in the process of being released have previously been publicly disclosed as connected in some way with Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

They include victims of Epstein who testified at the criminal trial of his procurer and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

The documents were filed in connection with a Manhattan federal court lawsuit by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell.

The fact that peoples’ names appear in the files does not necessarily mean they engaged in wrongdoing.

Only Epstein and Maxwell have been criminally charged in connection with his long-standing abuse of girls and young women at residences in New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and elsewhere.

Among the documents unsealed Wednesday was a deposition taken of Giuffre by lawyers for that suit and requests to take other depositions of other individuals by her lawyers.

One such request details how Maxwell in her deposition was unable to recall details about Epstein’s contacts with Britain’s Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton, who both had been friends of the pedophile.

Andrew in February 2022 agreed to settle out of court a lawsuit filed by Giuffre accusing him of sexually assaulting her when she was under the control of Epstein and Maxwell. Andrew has long denied her allegations, but his reputation has been wrecked because of them and because of his connection to Epstein.

Another Epstein accuser, Johanna Sjoberg, in a deposition unsealed Wednesday, was also asked about Clinton by Giuffre’s lawyer.

“Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill Clinton?” Giuffre’s attorney asked

Sjoberg responded, “He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.”

Clinton has never been accused of sexual misconduct with women or girls connected to Epstein.

A spokesman for Clinton, when asked for comment by NBC News, referred to a statement issued in 2019 that said he “knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”

The same statement in 2019 said that Clinton had not spoken to Epstein “in well over a decade.”

Sjoberg in her deposition, was asked if she ever massaged Donald Trump, another former president, who at one point was friends with Epstein.

On one occasion, she testified, she was on a plane with Epstein, Maxwell and Giuffre that landed in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Trump had casinos, after the plane’s pilots said they could not land in New York.

“Jeffrey said, Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to — I don’t recall the name of the casino, but — we’ll go to the casino,” Sjoberg said.

Sjoberg also testified about an incident involving Prince Andrew at Epstein’s home in Manhattan, when Maxwell went to a closet and pulled out a puppet of Andrew, and then brought it to where the prince was sitting with Giuffre on a couch, and someone suggested taking a photo.

“And so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the puppet, the puppet on her lap,” Sjoberg testified. “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.”

Sjoberg elsewhere testified that the magician David Copperfield was at a dinner at Epstein’s residence and that there was another young girl present.

Sjboberg said Copperfield “questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls.”

Epstein was known to receive sexual massages from girls and young women, some of whom had been recruited by other women for that purpose.

In Maxwell’s deposition, which was filed Wednesday, she was asked about the billionaire Glenn Dubin, a co-founder of the Highbridge Capital hedge fund.

“Did you ever instruct [Giuffre] to have sex with Glenn” Dubin, Giuffre’s lawyer asked Maxwell.

Maxwell replied, “I have never instructed Virginia to have sex with anybody ever.”

Dubin’s spokesman in 2019 denied claims by Giuffre that Maxwell had ever instructed her to have sex with him.

Also mentioned in documents unsealed Wednesday was the late modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, Epstein’s onetime lawyer Alan Dershowitz and the late former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Judge Loretta Preska ordered the unsealing in mid-December.

Preska has granted a 30-day extension barring the disclosure of two names, including a woman identified as Doe 107 to review her claim that she faces a risk of physical harm in her home country if her identity is publicly revealed.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence on charges related to recruiting and grooming young women to be abused by Epstein.

In a statement Wednesday, Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, said that since 2019, when Epstein was arrested and a federal appeals court issued a ruling about access to the court documents, “The public has wondered and many have rightly demanded to know how Epstein operated his vast, global sex trafficking enterprise and got away with it for decades.”

“Questions of who enabled and facilitated him and who participated in an operation that resulted in unspeakable harm and devastation to the lives of countless girls and young women quickly surfaced.  Some of those questions have been answered; many have not,” McCawley said. “Some justice for the survivors has, indeed, been achieved; not nearly enough as hoped for and deserved. The public interest must still be served in learning more about the scale and scope of Epstein’s racket to further the important goal of shutting down sex trafficking wherever it exists and holding more to account. The unsealing of these documents gets us closer to that goal.”

On Tuesday, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, during an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” said in regard to the list of names, “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel are really hoping that doesn’t come out.”

“I’ll tell you what, if that list comes out, I definitely will be popping some sort of bottle,” Rodgers said.

Kimmel, the host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show, quickly fired back at Rodgers in a tweet on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, suggesting he would sue the football player if he persisted in implying Kimmel had a connection with Epstein.

“Dear A-------: for the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list’ other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality,” Kimmel wrote in the tweet.

“Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”

McAfee apologized Wednesday on his show for “being part of” Rodgers’ comments.

— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Dawn Giel.

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Epstein list: Who is named in unsealed documents so far?

Celebrities and former politicians are mentioned in evidence that formed part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre's civil lawsuit against his former lover Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015. Many have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Some 60 of 250 previously sealed documents relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been released by a US court.

After Judge Loretta Preska ruled they could be unsealed in December and no objections were made, the first set of court papers were published on 3 January.

They largely consist of legal arguments and interviews carried out for Virginia Giuffre's 2015 civil lawsuit against Epstein's former lover Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting and grooming girls for him.

Epstein offered reward to disprove orgy claim

Ms Giuffre has been the most vocal of Epstein's accusers and settled a sexual assault lawsuit against Prince Andrew for a reported $12m (£9.5m) in 2022.

The Duke of York, who stepped back from public life and was stripped of his titles over his association with Epstein, vehemently denies Ms Giuffre's claims.

One of the files released this week is evidence from a woman called Johanna Sjoberg, another of Epstein's alleged victims.

In it are references to celebrities, politicians, and philanthropists, many of whom are not accused of wrongdoing but are believed to have known or associated with the late paedophile.

Epstein was first arrested in 2005 and later found dead in his New York prison cell while awaiting trial on further sex trafficking charges.

Here we look at some of the most well-known names in the newly released documents.

Ms Sjoberg's evidence says Prince Andrew touched her breast while on a sofa at Epstein's New York mansion in 2001 while he, Maxwell, and Ms Giuffre were there. The Duke of York and Buckingham Palace strongly deny this.

She says Maxwell took out a puppet - believed to be the one of the duke used for the BBC satire Spitting Image.

The evidence reads: "It looked like him. And she [Maxwell] brought it down and presented it to him; and that was a great joke, because apparently it was a production from a show on BBC.

"And they decided to take a picture with it, in which Virginia and Andrew sat on a couch.

"They put the puppet on Virginia's lap, and I sat on Andrew's lap, and they put the puppet's hand on Virginia's breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo."

Ms Giuffre's evidence claims she was "sex-trafficked to PA [Prince Andrew] and other men, including two of the world's most respected politicians" with those names redacted. The duke has always denied this.

A transcript of a video interview with Epstein's Palm Beach housekeeper Juan Alessi also sees him claim the duke "spent weeks there" and would have "daily massages".

Ms Sjoberg is asked in evidence: "Did you ever meet anybody famous when you were with Jeffrey?"

She replies: "I met Michael Jackson", adding that it was "at Jeffrey's house in Palm Beach".

Asked if she "massaged him", as she alleges she was forced to do with Epstein and others, she responds: "I did not."

The former US president was pictured socialising with Epstein and Maxwell and the pair are thought to have been friends.

Asked in her evidence if she ever massaged him on Epstein or Maxwell's request, she said no.

She later says that on one occasion she was on a plane with the pair and Ms Giuffre, which was told it could not land as expected in New York. Instead, it was diverted to Atlantic City, where Mr Trump had a casino.

Ms Sjoberg says: "Jeffrey said 'Great, we'll call up Trump and we'll go to - I don't recall the name of the casino, but - we'll go to the casino'."

A spokesperson for Clinton said in 2019 that he "knows nothing of Epstein's terrible crimes" and cut off all contact with him after he was first arrested in 2005.

Ms Sjoberg is asked: "Do you know if Bill Clinton was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein?"

She replies: "I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa together."

Epstein flew many well-known philanthropists and politicians around the world in his private jet to visit various international development project sites.

Quizzed if Epstein "ever talked to her about Clinton", she replies: "He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls."

An email from Ms Giuffre to Vanity Fair journalist Sharon Churcher in May 2011 also sees the former claim Mr Clinton threatened the publication "not to write sex-trafficking articles" about Epstein.

Separate evidence from Epstein accuser Sarah Ransome sees her tell a journalist in 2016 that sex tapes were filmed of Mr Clinton, Prince Andrew and others, by Epstein. A 2019 article in the New Yorker reports she invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein's behaviour".

As well as Ms Sjoberg's evidence, an email from Epstein to Maxwell is included in the unsealed files from soon after Ms Giuffre filed her 2015 lawsuit.

In it, Epstein says Maxwell should "issue a reward" to any one of Ms Giuffre's associates who can prove any of the allegations in the lawsuit to be false.

"You can issue a reward to any of Virginia's friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false," it says.

"The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy."

The late physicist Stephen Hawking was photographed on Epstein's Caribbean island in March 2006, as part of a trip to a science conference on neighbouring island St Thomas.

The conference was paid for by Epstein and saw 20 other scientists attend. There is no accusation of any wrongdoing by Mr Hawking.

Emails from Ms Ransome to a reporter in 2016 claim Sir Richard Branson, Mr Clinton and Prince Andrew were filmed having sex with people by Epstein.

They read: "When my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson, sex tapes were in fact filmed on each separate occasion by Jeffrey.

"Thank God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which clearly identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual intercourse with her.

"Frustratingly enough Epstein was not seen in any of the footage but he was clever like that!

"When my friend eventually had the courage to speak out and went to the police in 2008 to report what had happened, nothing was done and she was utterly humiliated by the police department where she went to report what had happened with Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew."

A New Yorker article, released in 2019, reported Ms Ransome admitted "she had invented the tapes to draw attention to Epstein's behaviour, and to make him believe that she had 'evidence that would come out if he harmed me'".

On behalf of Sir Richard Branson, a Virgin Group spokeswoman said: "In a New Yorker report published in 2019, Ransome admitted that she had 'invented' the tapes. We can confirm that Sarah Ransome's claims are baseless and unfounded."

In the documents released, photocopies of Epstein's assistant's notepad details calls to Epstein from Harvey Weinstein and Abigail Wexner "to talk about something private" in 2005.

Abigail Wexner is married to the former Victoria's Secret billionaire Les Wexner.

Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, is currently in jail for rape and sexual assault.

In the documents released, photocopies of Epstein's assistant's notepad details calls to Epstein from Harvey Weinstein and Abigail Wexner "to talk about something private" in 2005.

Abigail Wexner is married to the former Victoria's Secret billionaire Les Wexner.

Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, is currently in jail for rape and sexual assault.

Ms Sjoberg was asked if she had ever met the former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak.

She said she hadn't, adding that she had never met "any foreign president" or "Nobel Prize winner".

She was also asked about the then Democratic governor of the US state of New Mexico.

She says: "I want to say he was supposed to come to dinner when we were in New Mexico. I don't know if I met him."

"I believe that he and Ghislaine had dinner separate from myself," she adds.

Ms Sjoberg is asked about a "press report that said you had met Cate Blanchett or Leonardo DiCaprio" in her evidence.

She says she didn't meet either of them, but "when I was massaging him [Epstein], he would be on the phone a lot of the time, and one time he said 'Oh that was Leonardo, or 'That was Cate Blanchett, or Bruce Willis. That kind of thing".

The interviewer clarifies: "So name-dropping?", to which she responds: "Yes."

Among the other Hollywood stars she is asked about is actor Cameron Diaz.

But like the others, when asked if she ever met her via Epstein, she says: "No."

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Epstein court files damage Prince Andrew’s hopes of restoring reputation

The release of court documents relating to the late child sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein reduces any hopes the Duke of York had of rehabilitating his reputation.

The accusations against Andrew, from groping a woman’s breast in an alleged encounter involving a puppet version of the prince, to claims he had sex with an underage Virginia Giuffre, are given fresh airing.

The documents, the first of a tranche to be unsealed on the order of Judge Loretta Preska, were gathered for Giuffre’s 2015 defamation case against Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is said to have introduced Andrew to the financier, and is serving 20 years in a US prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.

In one witness statement, Johanna Sjoberg claimed Andrew groped her at Epstein’s house in New York in 2001 when she was aged 20, with Maxwell and Giuffre also present.

Her statement, previously partly revealed, alleges Maxwell had shown them a puppet of Andrew. “And they decided to take a picture with it, in which Virginia and Andrew sat on a couch. They put the puppet on Virginia’s lap and I sat on Andrew’s lap, and they put the puppet’s hand on Virginia’s breast, and Andrew put his hand on my breast, and they took a photo,” Sjoberg’s deposition said.

Asked about the seating arrangements, she said: “Whether we were on a couch or a chair, I just remember the boobs part, the hand on the boobs.”

Buckingham Palace previously said her allegations were “categorically untrue”.

Another filing regarding a Jane Doe #3, who is believed to be Giuffre, alleges she was “forced to have sexual relations with this prince when she was a minor in three separate geographical locations: in London (at Ghislaine Maxwell’s apartment), in New York and on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands (in an orgy with numerous other underaged girls)”. Epstein instructed her to “give the prince whatever he demanded and required Jane Doe #3 to report back to him on the details of the sexual abuse”.

Giuffre has alleged she was trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell and forced to have sexual intercourse at these same three locations with Andrew when aged 17, claims Andrew has categorically denied.

The documents also show Maxwell’s fear of being questioned over her links with Andrew. Shortly after a civil claim had been filed against her, she wrote in an email to her lawyer in January 2015: “I am out of my depth to understanding defamation and other legal hazards and don’t want to end up in a lawsuit aimed at me from anyone if I can help it. Apparently even saying Virginia is a lier [sic] has hazard! I have never been in a suit criminal or civil and want it to stay that way.”

She added: “I have already suffered such a terrible and painful loss over the last few days that I can’t even see what life after press he’ll [sic] even looks like – statements that don’t address all just lead to more questions … what is my relationship to Clinton? Andrew on and on.”

In her deposition, Maxwell said she had once been on Epstein’s Caribbean island when Andrew visited. But she said: “There were no girls on the island. No girls, no women, other than the staff who work at the house. Girls meaning – I assume you are asking underage – but there was nobody female outside of the cooks and the cleaners.”

Andrew has denied any wrongdoing, including in his settlement with Giuffre in 2022. In that settlement he said he “regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others”.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the documents as Andrew is no longer a working royal. In a previous statement about links to Epstein, the palace said Andrew “deplores the exploitation of any human being and the suggestion he would condone, participate in or encourage any such behaviour is abhorrent”.

The campaign group Republic said it had reported Prince Andrew to the police in response to the court documents released overnight and the allegations about what is claimed to have taken place in London against Jane Doe #3.

Graham Smith, Republic’s CEO, said: “I have reported Andrew to the police, well aware that the Met claims to have looked into this before. To date there appears to have been no serious criminal investigation, no interview of the accused or other witnesses and no clear justification for taking no action.

“I am calling on the Met police to reopen this case, I am calling on MPs to debate this affair in parliament, and I am calling on Charles to make a public statement – in front of the press and taking questions – to respond to these allegations and what they say about the monarchy.

“How can we not expect a response from the government and head of state? At the time of the alleged offences Andrew was a government trade ambassador and an active member of the royal family. They fudged and obfuscated for 11 years before taking any definitive action.”

He added: “The question many people will be asking is simple: if the accused were anyone else, do we believe they wouldn’t have been investigated and prosecuted?”

 This article was amended on 8 January 2023, to remove a reference that 17 is under the age of sexual consent in the US. The age of consent varies by state, between 16 and 18.

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Documents name alleged Jeffrey Epstein associates previously identified by accuser