Miami Herald challenge denied, leaving some Jeffrey Epstein records under seal
A federal judge’s rejection of a Miami Herald appeal for release of documents related to the investigation of disgraced financier Jeffrey E. Epstein raises the chances that the public may never learn the names of men who preyed on underage girls with him.
In a four-page decision written in a mocking tone, Judge Loretta Preska on Wednesday shot down a request for reconsideration from the Miami Herald and reporter Julie K. Brown, whose Perversion of Justice series led to the late Epstein’s re-arrest and downfall.
The decision is a setback, said Sanford L. Bohrer, a lawyer with Holland & Knight, which has represented the Herald in numerous Epstein matters. While an appeal is being considered, those who participated with Epstein in the sexual abuse of minors can breathe easier, he lamented.
“There are very important, significant people who appear to have participated in these disgusting activities with Jeffrey Epstein, and we need to expose them … to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Bohrer said. “They are hiding now and the judge says they are legally entitled to hide. There are names of people in there who did bad things … I don’t even know the names yet, because they have not been revealed yet.”
Lawyers for the Miami Herald argued that an earlier decision by Preska denying release of documents should be overturned because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had afterward issued a ruling that was the exact opposite of hers.
That argument, wrote Preska, “borders on frivolous.” She added she is not bound by decisions by the Ninth Circuit, which is the nation’s largest appellate court, and slammed the case before her as the same issue as before but brought back in “alternative dress.”
The Herald and Brown sought access to thousands of documents that are part of a 2015 civil lawsuit brought by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier’s one-time lover and longtime business associate.
Maxwell hasn’t been seen for months following Epstein’s reported suicide on Aug. 11 at the Manhattan Corrections Center under circumstances now under federal investigation and litigation.
The sealed documents in the Giuffre case, which was settled in 2017, are thought to contain names of former government leaders and high-profile celebrities, who traveled to Epstein-owned properties in the Virgin Islands. Authorities there last month brought a civil enforcement action against Epstein’s estate, saying the financier and his lawyers ran a criminal enterprise.
The Herald joined as an intervenor in the Giuffre case, arguing that the public had a right to see documents that were sealed in the case to understand who enabled Epstein and participated in his crimes. There should be a presumption of access by the media on behalf of the public, went the argument.
The request to unseal all documents was supported by lawyers for Alan Dershowitz, the celebrity lawyer who represented Epstein a decade earlier in the controversial case that originally resulted in federal immunity and a light sentence in the local jail for Epstein. Dershowitz was later accused by an alleged Epstein victim of having sex with the then-teenager, an allegation he staunchly denies. He has sued his accuser as well.
The original Manhattan-based judge hearing the Giuffre case, Robert Sweet, denied the Herald’s motion and the newspaper appealed it, where the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled in July that all motions in the case that Sweet had ruled on be unsealed and released to the public.
“When faithfully observing its best traditions, the print and electronic media’ contributes to public understanding of the rule of law’ and ‘validates [its] claim of functioning as surrogates for the public,” U.S. Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes wrote in a ruling for his three-judge panel.
But the question over the release of the balance of documents for which there were no motions was sent back to the lower court. And that’s where Preska followed up by agreeing with the view of Sweet, who died last March, that there was no right to have sealed motions that had not been ruled on made public.
The ruling on Wednesday to deny reconsideration from Preska, the senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, cemented her earlier decision.
Bohrer said an appeal is under consideration.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This version corrects and expands to explain that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, not Judge Sweet, ordered documents unsealed.
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 11:46 AM.