The Justice Department said Monday it had withdrawn several thousand documents and “media” related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein after lawyers complained to a New York judge that the lives of nearly 100 victims had been “turned upside down” by sloppy redactions in the government's latest release of Epstein-related materials.
The department blamed the release of sensitive information that drew an outcry from victims and their lawyers on mistakes that were “technical or human error.”
In a letter to the New York judges overseeing the sex trafficking cases brought against Epstein and confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton wrote that the department had taken down nearly all materials identified by victims or their lawyers, along with a “substantial number” of documents identified independently by the government.
Clayton, who is based in Manhattan, said the department has “iteratively revised its protocols for addressing flagging documents” after victims and their lawyers requested changes to the process for review and redaction of posted records.
He wrote that documents are promptly pulled down from the public website when victims flag a concern that something should be redacted. He said the concern is then evaluated before a redacted version of the document can be reposted, “ideally within 24 to 36 hours.”
Clayton's letter came in response to a letter sent Sunday to Judge Richard M. Berman from two lawyers for Epstein victims who had sought “immediate judicial intervention” because of what they described as thousands of instances when the government had failed to redact names and other personally identifying information.
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The judge scheduled a conference for Wednesday, saying the lawyers could invite their clients and that he understood the concern of the lawyers and the urgency but also added: “I am not certain how helpful I can be.”
He also encouraged the lawyers, Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards, to “continue to resolve open issues in good faith.”
In their letter to Berman, the lawyers included comments from eight women, including one who wrote that the records' release was “life threatening” and another who said she'd gotten death threats after 51 entries included her private banking information, forcing her to try to shut down her credit cards and accounts.
After Epstein took his own life in August 2019, Berman held a hearing in Manhattan federal court and allowed his accusers to speak. Berman, who presided over the sex trafficking case against Epstein, put the Sunday letter on the public docket on Monday.
Also Monday, a section of the Justice Department’s Epstein files website that had contained public court records from Epstein and Maxwell’s criminal cases and civil lawsuits was no longer functioning.
A message seeking comment on the website issue was left for the Justice Department.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an interview Sunday on ABC's “This Week” that there have been sporadic errors in redacting, or blacking out, sensitive information but that the Justice Department has tried to work quickly to address them.
“Every time we hear from a victim or their lawyer that they believe that their name was not properly redacted, we immediately rectified that. And the numbers we’re talking about, just so the American people understand, we’re talking about .001 percent of all the materials,” Blanche said.
The effect of errors in the document redactions was highlighted Monday morning at a sex trafficking trial in New York federal court when lawyers for two high-end real estate brokers and their brother asked Judge Valerie E. Caproni for a mistrial because of documents that were made public without necessary redactions.
Deanna Paul, a defense lawyer at the trial of Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander, said the “government through its own conduct has destroyed the possibility of a fair trial in this case” after the names of the brothers were included in several documents released on Friday. The brothers have pleaded not guilty to drugging and raping multiple girls and women from 2008 to 2021.
Paul said the Alexander brothers had now been “branded” with the “most toxic association.”
The judge tentatively rejected the mistrial request but still confronted a prosecutor, asking: “Government, really?”
“Yes, I understand where the court's coming from,” replied Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa.
She said she wasn't sure how the documents were “caught up in the universe of documents” related to Epstein but confirmed that at least one of the documents that mention the Alexander brothers “should have been properly redacted” and she said the documents had been withdrawn from public circulation.
As she spoke, Espinosa also gave an update on the general release of Epstein-related documents by the Justice Department, saying that the remaining documents to be released were “primarily related to civil litigation” that might require a judge's approval to be made public.
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