(BBC News) A long list of people associated with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is expected to be made public in the coming days.
The disclosures may throw new light on the sex trafficking network directed by Epstein, who died in 2019, and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The disgraced pair mixed with high-profile figures from the worlds of politics, business, and royalty.
A judge ordered that the court documents in a lawsuit linked to Maxwell must be unsealed.
There are 187 mentions of “J Doe” in the court papers, and many of these will now be given their real names.
The identities are being revealed under a settled lawsuit against Maxwell, the daughter of a British media tycoon.
She is serving a 20-year prison term for the crimes she committed with Epstein.
The defamation lawsuit was brought by Virginia Giuffre, one of Maxwell’s accusers, and at the time the names were kept secret under a court-ordered seal.
But last month a judge in New York ruled these could now come to light.
Judge Loretta Preska noted that many of the individuals named in the lawsuit have already been publicly identified by the media or in Maxwell’s criminal trial.
She added that many others “did not raise an objection” to the release of the documents.
Some of the names on the list will remain sealed, including those belonging to child victims, the judge said in her ruling.
And some individuals may have appeared more than once under different Doe numbers, so the exact number of names to emerge is unknown.
The list will be a mixture of people accused of wrongdoing, people making these accusations, and others who were potential witnesses to crimes.
There could be employees of Epstein or people who visited his home or went on his private plane.
Prince Andrew is expected to be on the list. The court filings include 40 documents of evidence from a woman who has made accusations against the prince.
Johanna Sjoberg claimed Prince Andrew groped her breast while sitting on a couch inside Epstein’s Manhattan apartment in 2001.
Buckingham Palace has previously said the allegations are “categorically untrue”.
Last year, the prince paid millions to Giuffre to settle a lawsuit she filed claiming that he sexually abused her when she was 17 years old.
He said he had never met Giuffre and denied her allegations.
Former US president Bill Clinton is mentioned more than 50 times in the court documents, according to ABC News. But there is no implication of any illegality.
He travelled on Epstein’s plane on humanitarian trips to Africa in the early 2000s and at the time praised Epstein as a committed philanthropist.
Clinton’s team has previously said that he cut ties with Epstein before the financier came under investigation. They have in the past said he knows nothing about Epstein’s crimes.
Many of his mentions in these court filings relate to Giuffre’s unsuccessful attempts to make the former president testify about his relationship with Epstein, says ABC.
Epstein died in jail in 2019.
His death, as he awaited federal sex-trafficking charges, was ruled to be a suicide by the New York medical examiner.
He was accused of running a “vast network” of underage girls for sex. He pleaded not guilty.
