Deceased pop star Michael Jackson is among the individuals who were named in a new tranche of documents related to deceased convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Jackson’s name came up during a May 2016 deposition that was provided by Johanna Sjoberg, who has alleged she is a victim of Epstein, which was among court papers that were unsealed on Wednesday. The late King of Pop, however, was not accused of any wrongdoing.
“Did you ever meet anybody famous when you were with Jeffrey?” asked Sigrid McCawley, an attorney who represented another Epstein accuser, Virginia Giuffre.
“I met Michael Jackson,” the witness, Johanna Sjoberg, responded, according to the documents. “At his house in Palm Beach. At Jeffrey’s house in Palm Beach.”
Ms. McCawley also asked Ms. Sjoberg if she had given Jackson a massage. She denied doing so.
Later on in the deposition, an attorney for Ms. Maxwell, Laura Menninger, asked about Jackson again. “You were asked about the famous people. You said you met Michael Jackson?” she asked.
Once again, the witness said she met the “Billie Jean” singer and again denied giving him a massage. There are no allegations of criminal activity or any wrongdoing on Jackson’s part in the newly disclosed documents.
The new tranche of Epstein documents was released in connection to litigation between Virginia Giuffre and Ms. Maxwell, who was convicted on a range of sex offenses in 2021 in connection to the Epstein case. Ms. Maxwell is now serving a 20-year-long prison term.
In the files, some of the names were ordered to remain redacted because they could identify individuals who were victims of sex crimes. “A lot of these cases take on lives of their own and people start believing things that aren’t true. Regarding this list, I could see people running amok because there are going to be names there that are just witnesses, like, oh that person may have been at this place at that time,” Mr. Aidala said.
Ms. Giuffre’s lawsuit against Ms. Maxwell was settled in 2017, but the Miami Herald went to court to access court papers initially filed under seal, including transcripts of interviews the lawyers did with potential witnesses. About 2,000 pages were unsealed by a court in 2019. Additional documents were released in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
The batch currently being released contains around 250 records with sections that were blacked out or were sealed entirely because of concerns about the privacy rights of Epstein’s victims and other people whose names had come up during the legal battle but weren’t complicit in his crimes.
More names from the client list are scheduled to be disclosed in the coming days and weeks.
As for Jackson, he was acquitted in 2005 of allegations that he abused underage boys, and he categorically denied those allegations when he was alive. He died in June 2009 due to an accidental overdose of the drug propofol. The late singer’s estate has not issued a public comment about the Epstein file disclosures.
