The Division of Justice stated Monday that it took down “a number of thousand paperwork and media” from not too long ago launched Epstein information that mistakenly uncovered the private info of the disgraced financier’s victims, based on court docket information.
The choice to take down the information comes after attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims advised two New York judges that the lives of roughly 100 survivors had been “turned the wrong way up” by sloppy redactions within the tranche of over 3 million Epstein information launched on Friday — exposing their photographs, e-mail addresses, names, and personal banking particulars.
In a Monday letter to Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer — who’re overseeing Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s intercourse trafficking circumstances — Jay Clayton, the US Lawyer for the Southern District of New York, wrote that the DOJ has taken down all of the exposing supplies recognized by victims or their attorneys.
The federal government has additionally independently recognized a “substantial quantity” of paperwork to take down, the doc obtained by The Publish stated.
The division blamed the a number of redaction snafus on “technical or human error,” and stated it has “revised its protocols for addressing flagging paperwork.”
“The Division has labored all hours by means of the weekend from the purpose when the primary
victim-related considerations have been raised,” Clayton wrote.
Paperwork are to be pulled down when flagged by victims, then are evaluated earlier than a redacted model of the doc could be reposted, “ideally inside 24 to 36 hours,” Clayton stated of the revised protocol.
Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards, two attorneys for Epstein victims, wrote to the court docket on Sunday searching for “fast judicial intervention” for the failed redactions that triggered “panic amongst the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein all around the world.”
“On Friday, January 30, 2026, the Division of Justice publicly launched greater than 3.5 million Epstein-related paperwork whereas failing to redact victims’ names and different personally figuring out elements in hundreds of situations,” the attorneys wrote.
This was “regardless of repeated representations that redaction was the only motive for delayed launch and DOJ’s acknowledgement that failure to redact would trigger extraordinary hurt to victims,” the letter continued.
“There isn’t any conceivable diploma of institutional incompetence adequate to elucidate the size, consistency, and persistence of the failures that occurred — significantly the place the only job ordered by the Courtroom and repeatedly emphasised by DOJ was easy: redact recognized sufferer names earlier than publication,” the attorneys, Henderson and Edwards, wrote.
Messages between the attorneys and eight girls, who determine as victims of the lifeless pedophile and whose private info was leaked within the “Epstein Information Transparency Act” mandated launch, have been additionally included within the letter to the judges.
One sufferer wrote she is now in a “life-threatening state of affairs” after her full handle and a photograph of herself have been launched within the file dump.
One other sufferer claimed she had obtained demise threats after her non-public banking info was leaked in 51 entries, forcing her to close down her bank cards and accounts.
The Division of Justice didn’t instantly reply to The Publish’s request for remark.
