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As new evidence is released in the case against convicted sex offender Ghislain Maxwell, many people are quick to point out that their inclusion on the list does not necessarily mean they did anything wrong. This is absolutely correct – and, as a court reporter, it’s extremely important to emphasize the legal implications of this information, or rather, the lack of them. Most of the names on this list are not charged with any criminal offense, apart from the allegations made in a sworn statement against Prince Andrew, which if true would amount to a criminal offence. But that does not mean we shouldn’t question the moral implications, rather than the legal ones, of these names. I mean that in two ways: The personal moral impact on those named, and The moral impact on us as a society.
For the past four years, I have been working on my book, the final piece of investigative reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking ring. What shocks me more than the lurid details I have learned from survivors who have never spoken publicly about this case is that such a large group of people knew about and facilitated this sex trafficking ring for at least 40 years. The amount of people who have seen or interacted with these victims – people who are famous, wealthy, sensational or otherwise – and did not question why they were there is mind-boggling.
In my opinion, the most interesting element of the latest batch of documents is the email in which one of the Epstein survivors (Virginia Giuffre) claims that former President Bill Clinton came to Vanity Fair and “threatened them not to do a story on sex trafficking with his best friend, Jeffrey Epstein,” according to Giuffre. This allegation has yet to be proven, but that does not mean that it is not worth exploring – as is the case with so many other claims in the Epstein documents.
This isn’t about sex trafficking. It’s about knowing criminal behavior that should violate our ethical, if not legal, norms. If that were our standard of morality, we’d have to take a long, hard look at ourselves ourselves. When the number of Epstein’s associates is so high, the question isn’t just about sex trafficking. The question is about knowing criminal conduct. If Giuffre is telling the truth, it goes a long way toward proving that the former President knew at the very least that allegations of sex trafficking were circulating about his ‘good friend’.
If a person, especially someone who has been chosen as a role model, has knowledge of allegations that are this serious, they should investigate them instead of simply shutting them down. For example, the supermarket tycoon Ron Burkle showed up on a witness list for the defamation case in the middle of the night with a court document (a document that a lawyer must swear to be a true and accurate description of their knowledge) saying that he knew about Ghislaine Maxwell’s and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual trafficking activities.
Again, this doesn’t prove Guiffre knew crimes were being committed. Instead, it shows Guiffre’s lawyers had probable cause to believe Guiffre knew conduct that was relevant to the allegations of sex trafficking. We don’t know what conduct that was, but Guiffre’s attorneys clearly believed that evidence of that conduct could help prove the sex trafficking charges.
The witness list also includes Doug Band, a former adviser to Clinton, who, according to the document, may have been aware of the sexual trafficking of Ghislain Maxwell and the activities of Jeffrey Epstein, both of whom were known to have had sexual relations with minors. Other names on the witness list include Eva and Glen Dubin and Prince Andrew, as well as the actress and philanthropist Giselle Beck, the legal luminary Alan Dershitz, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and the fashion tycoon Leslie Woxner.
Each witness will be using a variation of the phrase “he knows or may have known about sex trafficking conduct”. We should be intent on finding out what each of those people did in fact testify to – and whether or not they could have acted to protect the victims of Epstein’s abuse but chose not to do so. I know many more names of people who either knew about the abuse or saw underage girls at Epstein’s homes or on his flights – names I have been told I can’t report because of England and Wales’s easily-enforceable defamation laws, which are set to be reformed under the forthcoming anti-Slapp laws – who should be asked to explain exactly how much they knew on the record.
This speaks to the crucial distinction between the role of the Fourth Estate and the role of the legal system. As a practicing lawyer in both areas, I strongly believe that the role of journalism today is to clarify the law as well as to ask tough questions about actions or omissions that may or may not be unlawful but that we as the fourth estate should still be asking tough questions about. A failure to act when you suspect or dismiss the possibility of the ongoing commission of crimes as heinous as child abuse may not be unlawful, but if we want to continue advocating for a world that provides some justice for abuse survivors then it should definitely be regarded as gravely immoral.
In some instances, the law supports this view. For example, in the United States, the concept of “conscious avoidance,” which the jury was lectured on at length while I was sitting in the press box during Maxwell’s federal trial for sex trafficking, which involves ignoring signs that could indicate an illegal activity, can, under certain laws (including some of the sex trafficking laws) be considered to be a legal admission of knowledge of a criminal offense.
This week, we are seeing the full extent of what may be the largest and most influential sex trafficking network in history. The sheer number of people who either knew or chose not to know about its existence was crucial to its success – and its impunity – for decades and continues to this day. If we want to truly begin to transform the way we view sexual offences in our justice system and in our culture, we must not set the standard so low that only the perpetrators are held accountable. The enablers – whether they violated the law or not – must be held accountable.