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Casedl ADAH SROs ATTEN (dc MH Ert/ 362 Ci 6 2818/Peg Raget4| 867
The Honorable Alison J. Nathan
July 28, 2020
Page 4
Moreover, the defendant is able, at any time, to apply to the Court for a modification of the
protective order should she be able to identify a particularized need to publicly name victims who
have not yet identified themselves on the record in this case—as opposed to redacting their names
from court filings, or referring to them in an anonymized fashion. As noted, to date, defense
counsel has declined to identify to the Court or to the Government any example of why doing so
would be necessary or helpful to the defense, or even under what circumstances the defense might
want to do so.
The defendant’s proposal is also extraordinarily broad, and without any temporal or subject
matter limitation as to the phrase “public fora.” Adopting the defendant’s proposal would mean
that any individual who has ever self-identified as a victim of Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell
publicly in any capacity would be subject to public identification by the defendant and her counsel
in connection with this case. This would include, as hypothetical examples, someone who spoke
to a journalist for a local story in 1997, or posted on a MySpace page followed by a handful of
friends in 2005, or made a statement on a small podcast in 2009, or posted on Twitter to a handful
of followers in 2013. But none of these examples of ventures into the “public fora” can possibly
be construed as efforts by hypothetical victims to consent or choose “‘to self-identify,” Def. Ltr.
at 3, in a future criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell subject to extraordinary public attention
and scrutiny.
Additionally, while some individuals have identified themselves as victims without
providing any details or additional information about their abuse, the defense contemplates no
limitation of publicly associating those individuals with the details of their abuse in public defense
statements or filings. In essence, the defendant’s proposal seeks authorization to drag into the
public glare any victim who has ever made any type of public statement of victimization—no
matter how long ago or how brief—without that victim’s knowing consent and without any
substantive justification. That is particularly troubling given that the Government expects to make
productions of discovery and 3500 materials well surpassing its obligations. Those productions
will necessarily include the identities of individuals whom the Government does not expect to call
as witnesses, and whose accounts—much less identities—will have no bearing on this case. But
the defendant’s proposal would allow her and her counsel to publicly name them in any public
statement or filing at their sole discretion. This is plainly unnecessary for any investigative steps
or trial preparation, would be grossly inappropriate and unfair, and would be inconsistent with the
Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
Conversely, the Government’s submission proposes that the defendant and her counsel not
be precluded from discussing publicly individuals who identify themselves on the record in this
criminal prosecution, because any such individuals will have made a conscious and informed
choice to be associated publicly with this case. See Government Proposed Order {/f 5, 6, 8. The
identity of any other individuals should be protected from public broadcast by the defendant and
her counsel.
The defendant argues that her proposed language is “nearly identical in all material
respects” to the protective order entered in United States v. Epstein, 19 Cr. 490 (RMB) (Dkt. 38).
Def. Ltr. at 3. In the first instance, that is false. The protective order in the Epstein case included
App.059
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| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00019518.jpg |
| File Size | 1170.7 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.3% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 3,763 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 19:44:23.144871 |