The backstory here requires a bit of explanation. A woman named Virginia Roberts has claimed for years that she was recruited by Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell (who spotter her working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago) to give Epstein massages when she was just 16 years old. Roberts said that she became Epstein’s sex slave, having sex with him and with other men he was friendly with at Epstein’s request.

After Roberts (who married and took her husbands name, Giuffre) made these claims, Gislaine Maxwell denied them and Roberts responded by suing Maxwell for defamation. That lawsuit was settled in 2017 but the documents that were part of it have remained sealed. But last month an appeals court ordered some of the documents be released and that happened today. What the documents reveal is more detail about how Epstein’s private world operated. From the Daily Beast:

Virginia Giuffre, who says that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked her to powerful people for erotic massages and sex, claimed in a 2016 deposition that Maxwell directed her to have sex with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Britain’s Prince Andrew (whom she has accused before), wealthy financier Glenn Dubin, former senator George Mitchell, now-deceased MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, as well as “another prince” and the owner of a “large hotel chain” in France.

None of the men named in the deposition have been charged with a crime or even sued in civil court in connection with the Epstein case. The deposition represents accuser Giuffre’s allegations, and the court documents unsealed on Friday did not contain any corroboration or further details, though many documents remain sealed…

In a videotaped deposition—excerpts of which were included in the documents unsealed Friday—Giuffre said that Maxwell would send her to have erotic “massages” and sexual encounters with various powerful men—from a hotel owner in France (an incident she places “around the same time that Naomi Campbell had a birthday party”) to politician Richardson to Dubin, a financier who is married to Epstein’s former girlfriend Eva Andersson-Dubin.

Dubin and Andersson-Dubin were two of Epstein’s closest friends. Eva, a former Miss Sweden who married Glenn in 1994, was a critical factor in Epstein’s reintroduction to New York high society after the financier’s Florida conviction. The Dubins are fantastically wealthy—Forbes puts their fortune around $2 billion—and Glenn Dubin is a founder of Highbridge Capital, as well as the charitable Robin Hood Foundation (JFK Jr. had a seat on its board). They live in a 5th Avenue apartment once owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and are regulars on the Palm Beach circuit that Epstein once dominated.

[See update below regarding the Dubins.] The Miami Herald also published a story today about the new documents, highlighting some of the testimony that was part of the case:

Some of the testimony is difficult to read, as when one 15-year-old Swedish girl, shaking and crying in despair, tells a butler who worked for one of Epstein’s closest friends that she had been taken to Epstein’s island in the Caribbean and forced to have sex with him and others. The butler relates the story under oath. The girl, visibly traumatized, told the houseman who worked for Eva Dubin, a former Miss Sweden and founder of the Dubin Breast Center at Mount Sinai, and her husband, prominent hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, that Epstein and Maxwell had physically threatened to harm her and seized her passport to keep her on the island, according to the butler’s statement. She was so distraught she couldn’t recall how she got back to the U.S. mainland, but the butler testified that Maxwell brought her to the Dubin residence.

In short, if this is true then these people were monsters. The documents also raise questions about why Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly worked as Epstein’s madam, was given a pass:

The cache of court documents, part of the case’s motion for summary judgment, also show that as early as 2006, when the Palm Beach police were first investigating Epstein, he was being assisted by Maxwell as part of a pyramid-like scheme the pair operated to lure young girls from around Palm Beach, focusing on schools, colleges and spas.

Palm Beach Detective Joe Recarey testified in the case that he was never able to question Maxwell, but the fact that the police had evidence of Maxwell’s involvement raises new questions about why the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida failed to pursue sex trafficking charges against Epstein, Maxwell and others.

Maxwell was given immunity as part of Epstein’s sweetheart deal with the US attorney. Also, there’s this:

Giuffre, as part of her sworn testimony, also states that she met both former President Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and President Donald Trump, and that Epstein once held a dinner for Clinton on his island, Little St. James, off the coast of St. Thomas.

Clinton has admitted knowing Epstein but denies having ever visited his island. It’s worth noting that Roberts says she was not aware of either Trump or Clinton engaging in sex with any of the young women around Epstein.

Of course, everyone involved in this has denied everything but there are pictures of a young Virginia Roberts standing next to Prince Andrew (who has his hand around her waist) while Gislaine Maxwell looks on from the background. Given what we know Epstein was doing with young girls at the time, it’s really not that hard to believe her accusations.

Here’s the Miami Herald’s video report on Virginia Roberts:

Update (Ed), 8/10/19: A spokesperson for the Dubins e-mailed a response to the Daily Beast article to us:

“Glenn and Eva Dubin are outraged by the allegations against them in the unsealed court records and categorically reject them.”