The U.S. Department of Justice has triggered widespread condemnation after inadvertently publishing thousands of unredacted documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, compromising the identities and privacy of nearly 100 survivors. The massive data release, which occurred on Friday as part of a Congressionally-mandated disclosure, contained email addresses, nude photographs, and personally identifiable information that victims’ attorneys describe as the most severe violation of victim privacy in American history.
Legal representatives for Epstein’s victims urgently petitioned a federal judge in New York to intervene, characterizing the situation as an unfolding emergency requiring immediate judicial action. The DOJ subsequently removed all flagged documents from its website, attributing the disclosure of sensitive information to technical or human error. In a formal communication to the court, the department confirmed it had taken down all requested files for additional redaction and was continuously examining new requests.
Survivors expressed profound distress over the incident, with several reporting receiving death threats following the publication of their private banking details. Annie Farmer, one of Epstein’s survivors, told the BBC that the damage caused by the exposure overshadowed any new information revealed through the document release. Another victim, Lisa Phillips, accused the DOJ of violating all three core requirements established for the document release process, stating that survivors feel the department is ‘playing games’ with them despite their continued determination to seek justice.
Prominent women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred confirmed that numerous victims’ names appeared in the latest release, including some who had never previously been identified publicly. She noted that in some instances, redaction lines were insufficient to conceal names, while in other cases, photographs of victims who had never given public interviews were disclosed.
The DOJ spokesperson acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, emphasizing that the department takes victim protection seriously and has redacted thousands of victim names across millions of published pages. The spokesperson stated that only 0.1% of released pages contained unredacted information identifying victims and that the department was working around the clock to address the issue.
This latest document release, comprising three million pages, 180,000 images, and 2,000 videos, follows legislation signed by President Donald Trump under bipartisan Congressional pressure mandating public disclosure of all Epstein-related documents. The financier died in a New York prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.