Documents from suit connected to Jeffrey Epstein unsealed, name Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew

Hundreds of pages of documents that are part of a lawsuit connected to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have started being released.

CBC News is currently reviewing the newly unsealed documents. Those named in the documents are not necessarily accused of any wrongdoing; some of the people named are those making allegations or are potential witnesses.

Epstein, a disgraced financier known for associating with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and academic stars, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The documents being unsealed are related to a lawsuit filed in 2015 by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre. She is one of dozens of women who sued Epstein for abusing them at his homes in Florida, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands and New Mexico.

This suit was against Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term in Florida for helping recruit and abuse Epstein's victims.

The initial collection of around 40 documents made public largely contained material that had been released previously, or exhaustively had been covered in nearly two decades' worth of newspaper stories, TV documentaries, interviews and books about the Epstein scandal.

Still, the records — which included transcripts of interviews with some of Epstein's victims — contained reminders that Epstein surrounded himself with famous and powerful figures, including a few who have also been accused of misconduct.

There were mentions of Epstein's past friendship with former U.S. president Bill Clinton — who is not accused of any wrongdoing — and of Britain's Prince Andrew, who previously settled a lawsuit accusing him of having sex with a 17-year-old girl who travelled with Epstein.

Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg testified in a newly released deposition that she once met Michael Jackson at Epstein's Palm Beach, Fla., home, but that nothing untoward happened with the late pop icon.

Giuffre's lawsuit against Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the court had kept some court documents blacked-out or sealed because of concerns about the privacy rights of Epstein's victims and other people whose names had come up during the legal battle.

Only around 40 of those documents were made public Wednesday. More will be released in coming days.

The records included the depositions of several of Epstein's victims, many of whom have told their stories publicly previously.

Besides the mention of Michael Jackson, Sjoberg's May 2016 deposition also shed new light on an April 2001 trip to New York in which she said Prince Andrew touched her breast while they posed for a photo at Epstein's Manhattan town house.

In the testimony, some of which appeared as excerpts in previous court filings, Sjoberg said she and Giuffre had flown with Epstein to New York on his private jet. Maxwell and Prince Andrew met them there, she said.