Tag: jeffrey epstein

Judge orders release of Jeffrey Epstein records in response to Miami Herald litigation

A federal judge in New York on Thursday ordered the unsealing of key documents from a settled civil lawsuit involving Ghislaine Maxwell and victims alleging sex abuse and trafficking by the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Senior District Judge Loretta Preska ruled from the bench in a telephonic hearing that the public interest in the matter outweighed Maxwell’s claims that the documents, including depositions of central players in the Epstein saga, would prove embarrassing or interfere with ongoing legal matters.

Maxwell’s opposition to the unsealing effort, filed by the Miami Herald after it published a series of articles on Epstein titled Perversion of Justice, had long preceded her arrest on July 2 at a secluded New Hampshire mansion on allegations that she helped shepherd women and underage girls to Epstein for sexual abuse. She has pleaded innocent but was denied bail in a July 14 hearing.

The documents ordered unsealed by Preska are from the process of discovery, where lawyers from each side can ask detailed questions of each other’s witnesses ahead of a trial. Specifically, they were motions already decided on by a judge who first heard the civil lawsuit from Epstein victims against Maxwell.

Keep reading

Federal judge’s son, 20, is shot dead and her criminal defense attorney husband is critically injured after a gunman dressed as a FedEx driver ambushed their home – four days after she was assigned a case linked to Jeffrey Epstein

The son of a federal judge has been shot dead and her husband critically wounded after they were attacked at their home by a gunman dressed as a FedEx driver.

The attack happened at the home of Esther Salas, an Obama-appointed District Court judge, in North Brunswick, New Jersey, on Sunday evening.

Daniel Anderl, the judge’s 20-year-old son, was killed, the New Jersey Globe reported.

It’s believed the attack first began after the judge’s spouse, Mark Anderl, 63, answered the front door to the family home. He was shot several times.

Their son, Daniel then went to investigate the commotion and was fatally shot. 

Mark Anderl, 63, is reportedly in a critical condition in hospital after being shot several times

Daniel was a student at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. 

His father Mark is reportedly in critical  but stable condition in hospital.

Judge Salas was unharmed in the attack, which is thought to happened around 5pm, the Globe reported and was believed to have been in the basement of the home, according to NBC New York.    

The judge had recently been assigned to a case that had links to Jeffrey Epstein.

According to Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank is being accused of misleading investors ‘about anti-money-laundering deficiencies,’ including failing to properly monitor high-risk customers, that included billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting sex offense charges, however as of Sunday night authorities have not suggested the shootings are linked to any of the judge’s cases. 

Salas has sat a judge on the U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark, for nine years and was the first Hispanic woman to serve on the federal bench in the state

She served as a public defender and federal magistrate before President Barack Obama nominated her to serve as a District Court Judge in 2010. 

The judge has presided over a several high-profile trials during her tenure, including the trial of former Real Housewife Teresa Giudice in a case regarding financial fraud. 

She has also dealt with cases involving members of the Grape Street Crips according to NJ.com.

The case was connection with a long-running drug-trafficking network that was taken down by the FBI in 2015.  

Keep reading

Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly thinks Epstein was murdered, fears the same fate

Ghislaine Maxwell believes her ex-lover Jeffrey Epstein was murdered behind bars and lives in fear of facing the same unfortunate end, according to a new report.

“Everyone’s view including Ghislaine’s is Epstein was murdered. She received death threats before she was arrested,” an unnamed friend told The Sun.

A federal judge denied Maxwell bail on Tuesday and ordered the 58-year-old to spend the next year awaiting trial at the Brooklyn Detention Center, where she has been held since shortly after her July 2 arrest in New Hampshire.

The friend, who the Sun described as “in regular contact with Maxwell at her secret New Hampshire hideaway,” said the death threats spurred the British socialite to hire security guards, and led her to believe she may not live to see her trial.

Keep reading

The Media’s Deafening Silence on Mike Bloomberg’s Ties to Epstein and Other Criminals

After his late jump into the Democratic primary and, as critics argue, purchasing his way into the primary debates, former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has received mixed coverage from corporate media, with many negative critiques of the current presidential contender’s history, conduct and connections.

Yet, despite efforts by other campaigns and more progressive-leaning media outlets to dampen Bloomberg’s chances at the nomination, one clear weakness of Bloomberg’s has thus far evaded meaningful media coverage: his ties to key players in the Epstein scandal, including Leslie Wexner, Ghislaine Maxwell and even Jeffrey Epstein himself.

Silence among outlets that largely oppose Bloomberg’s candidacy regarding his connections to Epstein and those in his close social orbit is odd, especially when reporting on an individual’s connections to the intelligence-linked pedophile are a sure-fire way to generate considerable negative attention and fodder for rival campaigns. This is particularly striking given that the numerous accusations that Bloomberg has long stoked a toxic culture of sexual harassment at his company, resulting in no small number of non-disclosure agreements over the years, have received some media attention. Yet, the fact that many of Bloomberg’s close friends have been accused of far, far worse has received hardly any coverage by comparison.

For instance, when it was announced last week that the controlling stake in the Leslie Wexner-owned lingerie company Victoria’s Secret would be sold to a private equity firm called Sycamore Partners, only one media outlet — The Intercept — revealed that Bloomberg has at least $136 million of his money in that firm. The Intercept noted in passing that Wexner — the source of most of Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed fortune, his close collaborator for decades and alleged rapist of many of his victims — had been pressured to step down following the scandal, which also hit Wexner-owned companies hard and had forced the Ohio-based billionaire to seek a buyer for his lingerie brand and its tarnished reputation. Yet, the outlet did not make the direct connection that Sycamore Partners-backer Bloomberg is a friend of Wexner’s and has attended Wexner’s personal social parties for years prior to the most recent scandal.

Keep reading