FILE- In this July 30, 2008 file photo, Jeffrey Epstein is shown in custody in West Palm Beach, Fla. Labor Secretary nominee Alexander Acosta is expected to face questions at his Senate confirmation hearing about an unusual plea deal he oversaw for Epstein, a Florida billionaire and sex offender, as U.S. attorney in Miami. (AP Photo/Palm Beach Post, Uma Sanghvi, File)/Palm Beach Post via AP)

I doubt too many people will be lining up to pay their respects to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein who reportedly hanged himself on Friday night in his jail cell. My colleague, T. LaDuke, posted earlier about Epstein’s death here.

If he hadn’t allegedly tried to hang himself two weeks ago, one may have thought his decision to commit suicide last night had to do with the fact that over 2,000 documents were unsealed yesterday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. On July 18, I posted that those records were expected to be unsealed within days here.

At that time, one of the lawyers involved in the case told Vanity Fair that, “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It’s going to be contagion numbers.”

Another said, “Nobody who was around Epstein a lot is going to have an easy time now. It’s all going to come out.”

The court records “include affidavits and depositions of key witnesses” stemming from a 2015 civil defamation lawsuit filed against both Epstein and his former girlfriend and ex-madam, Ghislane Maxwell, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Giuffre alleges that Epstein and Maxwell “kept her as a “sex slave” in the early 2000s when she was underage.” According to Fox News, in one of the unsealed documents Giuffre claims “she was forced to have sex with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and ex-New Mexico governor and Clinton cabinet official Bill Richardson.”

Giuffre is currently 33.

Sen. Mitchell, now 85, told Fox “The allegation contained in the released documents is false. I have never met, spoken with or had any contact with Ms. Giuffre.”

However, a former Epstein employee, Juan Alessi, disputes the senator in a sworn affidavit.

A spokesman for Richardson told Fox that the allegations are “completely false.”

Fox News reports:

Giuffre claimed in a May 2016 deposition to have been trafficked to have sex with and provide erotic massages to powerful politicians, foreign leaders and well-heeled businessmen. In ordering the documents released, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also warned that the allegations contained within them are not necessarily proven.

Giuffre alleged in her own deposition that she was allegedly forced to have sex with Richardson, 71, Britain’s Prince Andrew, Hedge Fund manager Glenn Dubin, American scientist Marvin Minsky, “another prince,” “a large hotel chain owner,” Stephen Kauffman, and model scout Jean Luc Brunell.

All of those implicated so far have denied their involvement.

A spokesman for Dubin told Fox, “Glenn and Eva Dubin are outraged by the allegations in the unsealed court records, which are demonstrably false and defamatory.”

According to the documents, “Giuffre allegedly had sexual relations with Prince Andrew in three separate locations—Maxwell’s London apartment, New York, and Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Also included in the documents are flight logs including names of passengers aboard the private jet.

The records are unsealed. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know what effect, if any, Epstein’s death will have on their status. But I would imagine reporters poured over the documents quite thoroughly on Friday.

Read the whole article here.