A federal judge has given the Justice Department until February 5th to show how it is redacting all information about Jeffrey Epstein that it accidentally released.
Justice Department announces release of 3 million Epstein file pages
The Justice Department announced it has released 3 million redacted pages of Epstein’s files.
WASHINGTON – A federal judge has given the Justice Department until February 5 to explain how much “victim identifying information” it failed to redact from the recently released Epstein files, after the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers claimed they received death threats as a result.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer also directed the Justice Department to consider whether “all such materials” among the 3.5 million Epstein-related emails, photos, videos and other data in the investigative files released by the Justice Department on January 30 were subsequently blacked out.
Mr. Engelmayer’s Feb. 3 order was issued in response to a legal complaint filed by two attorneys representing Epstein’s survivors “regarding an emergency development requiring immediate judicial intervention,” including the immediate deletion of the Justice Department website that houses Epstein’s files until all information identifying his accusers is removed.
Attorneys Bradley Edwards and Brittany Henderson, who represent dozens of Epstein accusers, also asked the court to appoint an independent special master to oversee the redaction and republication of the Justice Department files, and to leave open the possibility of judicial sanctions “including contempt and monetary relief.”
“For Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, every moment counts. The harm is ongoing and irreversible,” the lawyers wrote in a detailed seven-page filing. “This court is the last line of defense for victims promised protection but instead exposed. Judicial intervention is not only appropriate, it is essential.”
In announcing the new release on January 30, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said images of all women in the file (except for Epstein’s convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell) would be redacted to ensure their personal information would not be made public.
But Edwards and Henderson said that in the first 48 hours after the files were made public on January 30, they reported “thousands of redaction failures to the Justice Department on behalf of nearly 100 survivors whose lives were forever changed by the Justice Department’s latest disclosure.”
In addition to receiving death threats, some of Epstein’s foreign accusers, who wished to remain anonymous, had to resist media reports that would reveal their identities or photos, lawyers said.
Other victims have come forward with similar accusations about how the Justice Department kept secret the identities of Epstein’s potential accomplices while releasing their own identities despite promises not to do so.
“It is hard to imagine a degree of institutional incompetence sufficient to explain the scale, consistency, and persistence of the failures that occurred,” Edwards and Henderson wrote, “especially when the only mandate ordered by the court and repeatedly emphasized by the Department of Justice was simply to redact the names of known victims before publication.”
All the Justice Department had to do, he told Engelmayer, was to enter each victim’s name into a unique search function and edit the files before making them public in the online Epstein Library database.
“Had the Department of Justice done so, the harm could have been avoided,” they said.
Instead, on January 30, the Justice Department “committed what appears to be the most egregious violation of victim privacy in a single day in U.S. history,” Edwards and Henderson wrote.
The Department of Justice admits failure. Survivors say that’s not enough.
A department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY on Feb. 5 about whether the Justice Department would meet the judge’s deadline.
In a statement to USA TODAY, the Justice Department said it “takes victim protection very seriously and redacted the names of thousands of victims across millions of published pages to protect innocent people.”
“In cases where a victim’s name is allegedly not redacted, our teams are working around the clock to correct the issue and republish the appropriately redacted page as soon as possible,” the Justice Department said.
“Immediate judicial intervention” required to protect whistleblowers
The seven-page filing by Edwards and Henderson is filled with examples in which they claim the Justice Department failed to redact information about the women dating back to the previous release of the files on Dec. 19, 2025, as required under the Epstein File Transparency Act, which took effect a month ago.
The next day, Dec. 20, they said they immediately notified the Justice Department of “hundreds of redaction errors” that required urgent attention, including unredacted names and dates of birth.
One document alone identifies more than 30 victims, according to the motion seeking “immediate judicial intervention.”
Lawyers said the failure forced Epstein survivors to “stay up all night using the Justice Department’s search bar to locate and read every publicly posted document that would identify them, despite the office’s assurances that this would never happen.”
Collectively, Epstein is believed to have victimized girls and young women and forced them to perform sex acts, possibly over several decades, at his mansions in New York, Florida, and New Mexico, as well as on private islands in the Caribbean.
Many of Epstein’s estimated 1,000 to 1,200 victims have cooperated with FBI agents and federal prosecutors over the years, insisting that their identities and involvement in the investigation remain anonymous. Some of Epstein’s survivors were minors at the time of the alleged abuse.
But when some Epstein survivors and their lawyers contacted the Justice Department requesting redactions, the agency often blacked out some identifying information and left other data in its files, the lawyers said.
The concerns of many victims were dramatically exacerbated on January 30 by the release of exponentially larger Department of Justice files and more sensitive information about the victims and the nature of their allegations. Democratic lawmakers and other critics are calling on the Justice Department to take immediate action to protect against further harm.
Maxwell was convicted of related crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison, which she is currently serving. Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial after being arrested on similar charges.
One Department of Justice document listing the names of 32 minor child victims.
In legal filings, lawyers cited a litany of missteps by the Justice Department, including those of minor victims whose names were revealed as many as 20 times on a single document.
“After reporting the violation, the Department of Justice redacted her name three more times, leaving 17 cases still unredacted at the time of this complaint,” the lawyers said.
Lawyers say that even though the Justice Department was aware of those names, another email listed 32 minor victims, with only one name redacted and 31 left visible.
Their request for immediate injunctive relief also asserts:
- The FBI’s victim statement, known as a “302 report,” included the minor victim’s full, unredacted first and last name.
- The handwritten FBI interview notes listed the underage victim’s full name unredacted at the beginning and throughout.
- Documents that include the victim’s name and date of birth, bank information, driver’s license number, and email or home address.
- A document in which the victim’s name is redacted in some places within the same document, but not in others.
- The edit is a “pencil-thin” document with your full name and email address below.
- A document with a well-edited photo in one example, but completely unedited up close.
- Hundreds of documents revealing the names of four women who “have been in near-constant contact with the Department of Justice since December seeking protection.”
As a result of these redacting failures, 20 clients who claim to be Epstein’s survivors have agreed to release statements as part of an emergency appeal to the judge, the lawyers said.
‘My life is in immediate danger,’ one survivor tells Justice Department
“This is so wrong on so many levels,” said one person, who identified herself as Jane Doe No. 3. “It not only exposes victims to potential abuse and intimidation, but it could potentially destroy families and damage our careers. I’m horrified.”
Some said that newspapers and websites were located overseas that had all the details, including photos, that were not supposed to be linked.
“How is that possible?” asked Jane Doe #4. “Like the whole of the EU,[my home country]has strict privacy laws. I’m shocked. I didn’t expect our privacy to be so violated.”
While dozens of Epstein accusers have gone public with their accusations, some say their claims of anonymity to protect their privacy have now been shattered, putting them and their families at risk.
“Please, please remove my name!!!” Jane Doe 5 said. “You can only imagine the devastation your mistakes are inflicting on Jeffrey Epstein’s many other victims.”
Jane Doe 7 said the publication of her name and photo brought unwanted publicity and threats in her home country, where she now lives.
“The news media is making up crazy stories to make me seem like a legitimate target for others to attack physically and in the press,” said Jane Doe 7. “My life is in imminent danger unless you continue to release more files and information about me and remove or edit files and information that have already been released.”
He added: “This is a life-threatening situation for me. Please take my complaint seriously.”
Jane Doe 8 said she also received death threats within 24 hours of her release from the Department of Justice on January 30, including 51 posts mentioning her.
“(I’m) now in the process of closing my card and account because you had the audacity to release my private banking information,” Jane Doe 8 said. “This type of vicious attack on victims by the Department of Justice is abhorrent.”
Lawyers said in their filing that the Justice Department must redouble its efforts to ensure all names and identifying information are immediately redacted to prevent further harm.
In addition to immediate deletion of the files, they asked the court to appoint an independent special master to oversee editing and republication, and to leave open the possibility of judicial sanctions “including contempt and monetary relief.”
“Every moment counts for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. The damage is ongoing and irreversible,” the attorneys said. “This court is the last line of defense for victims promised protection but instead exposed. Judicial intervention is not only appropriate, it is essential.”
