New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File
Information released by the Department of Justice in some of the files surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was not properly redacted, with blacked-out text becoming visible with a simple copy and paste.
When the DOJ posted documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act on its website beginning Friday in accordance with the midnight deadline, the level of redacted information drew instant outrage.
But as more information continued to be released, amounting to nearly 30,000 documents, some viewers found that blackout intended to protect sensitive information was easily sidestepped by simply copying the text into a separate document.
In one of the released files spotlighted by The New York Times — a civil suit against the executors of Epstein’s estate — a redacted portion of text shows that an executor signed a check sent from Epstein’s foundation to an immigration lawyer. Darren Indyke, the executor in question, signed the check – the blacked out portion revealing that the immigration lawyer was “involved in one or more forced marriages arranged among Epstein’s victims.”
One redacted portion of the suit reads: “Between September 2015 and June 2019, Indyke signed (FAC) for over $400,000 made payable to young female models and actresses, including a former Russian model who received over $380,000 through monthly payments of $8,333 made over a period of more than three and a half years until the middle of 2019.”
Indyke has not been criminally indicted by authorities.
A further redacted portion of the civil suit details how Epstein “threatened harm to victims and helped release damaging stories about them” when they attempted to go public, adding that Epstein “instructed one or more Epstein Enterprise participant-witnesses to destroy evidence relevant to ongoing court proceedings involving Defendants’ criminal sex trafficking and abuse conduct.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has stated that “the only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law” and that information was withheld to ensure the DOJ was “protecting every single victim.”
Yet in a recent report on the document dump, Fox News Digital noted that the redactions were put in place to protect more than just Epstein’s victims and accusers.
“The Justice Department redacted the names and identifiers of victims. Fox News Digital has learned that the same redaction standards were applied to politically exposed individuals and government officials,” according to the report.
The bill forcing the release of the files stipulates that no information could be redacted on the basis of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity” with the exception of protecting the identities of victims.
A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment on the subject to The New York Times.