A vocal Jeffrey Epstein accuser is urging judges to unseal his court records

NEW YORK– One of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s most vocal accusers urged judges Wednesday to grant the Justice Department’s request to unseal records from their federal sex trafficking cases, saying “only transparency can lead to justice.”

Annie Farmer intervened through her lawyer, Sigrid S. McCawley, after the justices sought input from victims before deciding whether the records should be made public under a new law requiring the government to open its files on the late financier and his longtime confidante, who sexually abused young women and girls for decades.

Farmer and other victims fought for passage of the law, known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Signed last month by President Donald Trump, it requires the Justice Department, the FBI and federal prosecutors to disclose by Dec. 19 the vast documents they amassed during the Epstein investigations.

The Justice Department last week asked Manhattan federal judges Richard M. Berman and Paul A. Engelmayer to lift secrecy orders on grand jury transcripts and other documents from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case and a wide range of documents from the 2021 Maxwell case, including search warrants, financial records and notes from victim interviews.

“Nothing in this proceeding should stand in the way of their victory or provide a backdoor route to continuing to cover up the most notorious sex trafficking operation in history,” McCawley wrote in a letter to the justices.

The lawyer criticized the government for failing to pursue anyone in Epstein and Maxwell’s orbit.

She asked the justices to ensure that the orders they issue do not prevent the Justice Department from releasing other documents related to Epstein, adding that Farmer is “wary” that any refusal could be used “as a pretext or excuse” to withhold information.

Epstein, a millionaire fund manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, committed suicide in prison a month after his 2019 arrest.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s minor victims and participating in some of the abuse. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

In a court filing Wednesday, Maxwell’s attorney again said she is preparing a habeas petition in an effort to overturn her conviction. The attorney, David Markus, first mentioned the habeas petition in court papers in August, as she fought the Justice Department’s initial attempt to have her case unsealed. In October, the Supreme Court refused to hear Maxwell’s appeal.

Markus said in Wednesday’s filing that even if Maxwell now “does not take a position” following the passage of the transparency law, it would “create undue prejudice so severe as to preclude the possibility of a fair new trial” if his habeas petition is successful.

The records, Markus said, “contain unverified and unproven allegations.”

Engelmayer, who is weighing whether to release records from Maxwell’s case, has given him and the victims until Wednesday to respond to the Justice Department’s unsealing request. The government must respond to their files by December 10. The judge said he would rule “expeditiously thereafter.”

Berman, who presided over the Epstein case, ordered the victims and Epstein’s estate to respond by Wednesday and gave the government until Dec. 8 to respond to those submissions. Berman said he would “do his best to resolve this motion quickly.”

Lawyers for Epstein’s estate said in a letter to Berman on Wednesday that the estate was taking no position on the Justice Department’s unsealing request. The attorneys noted that the government was committed to appropriately redacting victims’ personally identifiable information.

Last week, an attorney for some victims complained that the House Oversight Committee had failed to redact or black out some of their names from tens of thousands of pages of Epstein-related documents it released in recent months.

Transparency “CANNOT come at the expense of the privacy, safety, and protection of victims of sexual abuse and sex trafficking, especially those survivors who have already suffered repeatedly,” attorney Brad Edwards wrote.