Victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Saturday expressed anger after a long-awaited cache of records from cases against him were released with many pages blacked out and photos censored.
The trove of material released by the US Justice Department included photographs of former president Bill Clinton and other luminaries in Epstein’s wealthy social circle including Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson.
But blackouts across many of the documents – combined with tight control over the release by officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration – stoked scepticism over whether the disclosures would silence conspiracy theories of a high-level cover-up.
Advertisement
“Just put out the files and stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted,” Marina Lacerda, an accuser of Epstein, told CBS.
“Are we protecting the survivors or are we protecting these elite men? The whole process of being transparent was to only redact the survivors and the victims’ names.”
Another Epstein survivor, Jess Michaels, said she spent hours combing the documents to find her victim’s statement and communication from when she had called an FBI tip line.