Judge orders release of documents naming Jeffrey Epstein associates

The names include sex abuse victims, litigation witnesses, Epstein’s employees — and even some people with only a passing connection to the scandal.

A federal judge has ordered the public disclosure of the identities of more than 150 people mentioned in a mountain of court documents related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, saying that most of the names were already public and that many had not objected to the release.

The people whose names are to be disclosed, including sex abuse victims, litigation witnesses, Epstein’s employees — and even some people with only a passing connection to the scandal — have until Jan. 1 to appeal the order, signed Monday by Judge Loretta A. Preska.

For several years, Preska has reviewed documents sought by the Miami Herald from a civil case, filed by one of Epstein’s victims, that eventually was settled.

Many of the records related to that lawsuit were publicly released in past years, but on Monday the judge made determinations about some portions of the records that were initially withheld on potential privacy grounds and what can be made public about certain people mentioned in the records.

In many instances, she noted that individuals had given media interviews or that their names had previously emerged publicly in various ways, including at a trial two years ago of Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.