Latest release of Epstein files includes some survivors' names, despite DOJ assurances, lawyers say
Attorneys for hundreds of Jeffrey Epstein's survivors told ABC News that names and identifying information of numerous victims appear unredacted in the latest disclosure of files on the late sex offender by the Department of Justice, including several women whose names have never before been publicly associated with the case.
Three million pages from the DOJ's files on Epstein were being released to the public Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press briefing this morning.
Several categories of pages were withheld from the release due to their sensitive nature, Blanche said. These items include personally identifying information of the victims, victims' medical files, images depicting child pornography, information related to ongoing cases and any images depicting death or abuse.
"We are getting constant calls for victims because their names, despite them never coming forward, being completely unknown to the public, have all just been released for public consumption," said Brad Edwards, an attorney for some of the victims, in a telephone interview with ABC News. "It's literally 1000s of mistakes."
ABC News has independently confirmed numerous instances of victims' names appearing in documents included in the latest release.
Shortly after the new material appeared on Friday morning, Edwards said he and his law partner, Brittany Henderson, began receiving calls from clients.
"We contacted DOJ immediately, who has asked us to flag each of the documents where victim names appear unredacted and they will pull them down," Edwards said. "it's an impossible job. The easy job would be for the DOJ to type in all the victims' names, hit redact like they promised to do, then release them."
In a statement, the DOJ said, "The Department coordinated closely with victims and their lawyers to ensure that the production of documents includes necessary redactions. We want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made; so, the Department has established an email inbox (EFTA@usdoj.gov) for victims to reach us directly to correct redaction concerns when appropriate."
"They're trying to fix it, but I said 'the solution is take the thing down for now. There's no other remedy to this. It just runs the risk of causing so much more harm unless they take it down first, then fix the problem and put it back up.'"
The department has reviewed and redacted "several millions of pages" of materials related to the investigations of Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and expects to publish "substantially all" of the records "in the near term," according to a letter filed Tuesday by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence.
Blanche said Friday's release, which follows the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, will include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to the Epstein case.
Blanche said in total there were 6 million documents, but due to the presence of child sexual abuse material and victim rights obligations, not all documents are being made public in the current release.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he "sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations," using cash payments to recruit a "vast network of underage victims," some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
