The US Department of Justice has removed thousands of documents related to financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from its website. This happened after some of Epstein’s victims pointed out that their names in the files had become publicly available, the British station BBC reported.
- The Justice Department has removed thousands of Epstein documents from the web.
- Victims criticized the publication of personal data and nude photos.
- The ministry says it was a technical or human error.
The New York Times pointed out that the published materials contained e-mail addresses and photographs of naked bodies, on which the names and faces of nearly 100 survivors could be identified.
The victims disagree
The individuals subsequently issued a statement calling the disclosure “scandalous” and saying they should not have been “named, investigated and re-traumatised”.
In its response, the Justice Department said it had removed all flagged files and that this was due to “technical or human error.”
File materials and courts
The department added that it is also examining other new applications and at the same time checking whether there are still documents that will need to be responded to. A “significant number” of other files were also removed in parallel.
Under the terms of the release of materials about Epstein, approved by both houses of the US Congress, the federal government was required to black out data that could lead to the identification of the victims.
Legal action
A pair of lawyers, Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards, who represent Epstein’s victims, already last Friday (January 30) asked a federal judge in New York to order the Justice Department to take down the website containing the files. The lawyers called the release of their clients’ sensitive information “the most serious violation of a victim’s privacy in one day in the history of the United States.”
Some victims feared for their lives as they received death threats after sensitive data was released. Others, such as Lisa Phillips, have pointed out that survivors are not happy with the outcome of the disclosure.
The reaction of the ministry
“The DOJ has violated all three of our demands: many documents have still not been released; the deadline for release has long passed; the DOJ has released the names of many survivors,” Phillips said. She added that she feels that the authorities are playing some games with Epstein’s victims, but assured that she will not stop fighting for justice.
A spokesman for the US Department of Justice told the CBS news website that the department takes “the protection of victims very seriously and has blacked out thousands of names on millions of published pages to protect the innocent”. He added that “to date, 0.1 percent of the published pages have been found to contain unredacted information that could lead to the identification of victims.”
Millions of published pages
Since last year, the US Department of Justice has released millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Last Friday, there were approximately three million pages of documents, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos.
The release comes six weeks after the Justice Department missed a legal deadline to release all documents related to the financier to the public.
Jeffrey Epstein was found on August 10, 2019 in his cell in a New York prison awaiting trial on charges of sexual abuse and trafficking of minors. The medical examiner determined the cause of death to be suicide by hanging.
