Judge Orders Virginia Giuffre’s Lawyers to ‘Destroy’ Their Jeffrey Epstein Files

A federal court in New York City has moved to further restrict access to long-sought-after secret files in the Jeffrey Epstein saga. In a Wednesday order, Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska determined that attorneys for Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre had improperly gained access to many of those highly-prized documents.

Preska determined that certain discovery materials covered by a years-old protective order “are not properly in possession” of Giuffre’s current legal team and “thus must be destroyed.” That means that they can’t have copies of the documents in question; it does not mean that all copies of the documents will be deleted from existence. Additionally, the law firm of Cooper & Kirk must provide “an affidavit detailing the steps that it took to destroy the materials.”

The ruling was also a setback for Harvard Law professor emeritus and former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has repeatedly sought access to the full tranche of Epstein files and discovery materials. . .

At issue here are two separate legal controversies: (1) a protective order issued in 2015 by Judge Robert W. Sweet in a since-settled defamation case between Giuffre and Epstein’s alleged groomer and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell; and (2) a more recent series of extant defamation, back-and-forth claims between Giuffre and Dershowitz.

The Giuffre v. Maxwell protective order is the major legal lock-and-key which has long-protected the Epstein files. A process is currently underway for both sides to sift through those documents and eventually make many of them available for public consumption. (Read more from “Judge Orders Virginia Giuffre’s Lawyers to ‘Destroy’ Their Jeffrey Epstein Files” HERE)

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