When the House Oversight Committee released a trove of files and emails from the Epstein estate earlier this month, alleged victims of the convicted sex offender responded with “widespread panic” after learning the documents included dozens of unredacted victim names, a prominent attorney for Epstein victims told a federal judge this week.  

“I thought the government had promised to redact our names and identifying material. I don’t understand how this is happening again,” one alleged victim told attorney Bradley Edwards, according to a court filing Wednesday.  

“This type of negligence by the government to a survivor is just unable to comprehend. It is just impossible,” another alleged victim said, according to the filing. “I don’t understand how this is possible.” 

“I have been unable to mentally and emotionally function or sleep,” yet another alleged victim wrote, per the court filing. 

With the Justice Department now facing a Dec. 19 deadline to release hundreds of thousands of Epstein files, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Edwards is calling on a federal judge to order the DOJ to improve their review policy to prevent another release of potentially sensitive information about alleged victims.  

“These women are not political pawns. They are mothers, wives, and daughters. These are women who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein, and in some instances by others, and who have already had their rights violated in the past by the Government,” Edwards wrote in the filing to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman. “They are human beings who have the right to be treated with dignity and respect, and to feel safe and protected by our country, which has failed them time and time again.”

According to Edwards, the House Oversight release included the unredacted names and personal information of dozens of victims, including women who were minors at the time of their abuse. One document alone contained 28 unredacted names of alleged victim, Edwards wrote. Based on the scope of the issue, Edwards said that he believes the DOJ either “does not know the identities of all the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and thus cannot apply proper redactions to the files,” or “is intentionally failing to protect victims from public exposure.”

“While we will detail the various excuses that the Court will no doubt be provided, this is absolutely unacceptable and a program that must be rectified prior to the public release of any additional documents,” Edwards wrote.

Edwards further noted that the DOJ publicly acknowledged in July that “Epstein harmed over one thousand victims.” Based on that statement, Edwards asked in the filing that the court confirm with the DOJ that, prior to submitting the files to the House Oversight Committee, “it undertook the onerous and necessary task of redacting all one thousand plus victim names that it had in its possession.”

“On that pointed inquiry, the court will learn the DOJ’s redaction process and its process efforts are so irreconcilable with the number of victims it has publicly acknowledged that, when confronted with the discrepancy, its response will land somewhere between incoherent mumbling, non sequitur, and outright misrepresentation,” Edwards wrote.

Edwards also alleged in the filing that victims have been unable to contact the Department of Justice to prevent the same thing from happening again.  

“Despite numerous pleas for assistance, there is one singular entity that the victims cannot seem to find a way to engage and which has been the primary violator of the victims’ identity protection thus far — the Department of Justice,” he wrote.  

With the DOJ already possessing hundreds of thousands of Epstein documents, Edwards also cast doubt about the Trump administration’s intention in seeking out separate grand jury material.

The DOJ has asked judges in New York and Florida to authorize the release of grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell — information that is typically not made public. Before the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ made similar requests that were denied by judges.

“[T]his incredibly small, and largely irrelevant, subset of grand jury materials [seems] to serve as nothing more than DOJ’s perpetual distraction from providing the American people with full transparency as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein, while protecting the victims,” the filing states.

Edwards asked Judge Berman to order the Department of Justice to clarify what documents they plan to release and the process for redacting them. He also requested the ability to confer with the DOJ to ensure that a complete list of victims’ names is used in the redaction process.  

Judge Berman responded to the letter Wednesday by ordering the Department of Justice, by noon Monday, Dec. 1, to provide a “detailed description” of the materials they seek to release and a “detailed description of the privacy process, including any redactions, the Government seeks to employ to protect the rights of Epstein victims.”  

In a separate filing Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said his office would “confer with counsel for known victims concerning names and terms for withholding and redactions.”  

Clayton also clarified the breadth of the documents the Department of Justice seeks to release, including notes from witness interviews, search warrant applications, financial and travel records, grand jury subpoena returns, school records, materials from the Epstein estate, and law enforcement records.