Khaberni - An American judge will consider, on Wednesday, a petition submitted by several victims of the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of sex crimes, demanding the removal of their names from documents published by the U.S. Department of Justice, after some of their identities were exposed, which was considered a serious violation of their privacy, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper quoted a letter from the victims' lawyer stating that the lives of about 100 survivors were "severely affected" by the publication of these documents, noting that some had faced harassment and direct threats.
The New York Times reported that the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi clarified, in a letter to the court, that the department had worked throughout the weekend on "removing thousands of documents and media materials that might have unintentionally included information revealing the identities of the victims."
The U.S. Department of Justice had begun, last Friday, publishing a new batch of documents related to Epstein, affirming that the step came in response to the demands of the administration of President Donald Trump for "full transparency" in this sensitive case.
According to the New York Times, the victims' lawyers also demanded the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the publication process, after the newspaper reported that the Department of Justice had published, among the files, photos of naked young women, some of whom are presumed to be teenagers.
Out of about 3 million pages published, about 40 images containing explicit sexual content or revealing the identities of the victims were retained, the newspaper said they "appear to be part of a personal collection."
Epstein was accused of running a sex trafficking network for minors before he was found dead in his cell in New York in 2019 before his trial for sexual assault charges, in an incident that sparked a wide wave of conspiracy theories about the possibility of his murder to protect influential figures.
