Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have condemned the US Department of Justice’s release of files about the disgraced financier, with one saying “a five-year-old could have done a better job”.
Jess Michaels claims she was raped by Epstein in his penthouse after meeting him as a 22-year-old professional dancer in 1991.
Speaking to Sky News’ Jonathan Samuels on The World she said she hoped “that justice would finally happen” but said there are “extreme redactions and then extreme neglect to (not) redact”.
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Lawyers for the survivors have criticised the US Department of Justice’s redactions of personal information from the Epstein files released on Friday, with the identity of at least one woman who had not previously come forward with allegations having been revealed.
“A five-year-old could have done a better job redacting these files with colour-coded crayons. It is an embarrassment that our Department of Justice put this out as their very best work,” Ms Michaels said.
“It is shocking the damage this department of justice has done with the way that they have released survivors’ personal information out there, when they literally had one job, which was to redact survivors’ names.”
Ms Michaels added: “I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt that it was just sloppy incompetence.
“But now it feels almost like it’s purposeful to intimidate survivors, to punish survivors, to discredit survivors, and then not to hold the perpetrators actually guilty.”
Survivor says files redacts ‘powerful people’
Another survivor, Lisa Phillips, agreed that the US Department of Justice’s latest release of Epstein files “had a lot of redactions of people, powerful people… that were there” with the disgraced financier.
She said “we should be able to see who those people are”.
The US Department of Justice, in a court filing on Monday, said it was in the process of “removing documents that inadvertently were produced and contain victim-identifying information”.
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The latest release of the files contained further revelations of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein.
Both men have always denied wrongdoing.
Ms Michaels said “anyone that spent any significant time with Jeffrey Epstein should be called to testify before Congress”.
Ms Phillips, who said she once met Andrew at the pool on Epstein’s island, said “everybody wants to hear” him testify.
She added: “I would be the first person to want to hear about that testimony.”
Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
