Jeffrey Epstein offered money to prove Stephen Hawking 'underage orgy' allegation was false

Court documents released yesterday (3 January) pertaining to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein includes an email from him where he says he will pay the friends of one of his victims to 'prove her allegations false'.

US District Judge Loretta Preska is said to have issued an order to unseal the documents from a 2015 lawsuit filed against Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, by Virginia Giuffre.

That lawsuit was settled in 2017 and a number of documents from the court were unsealed between 2019 and 2022.

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The latest portion of documents which have been unsealed had carried concerns about the privacy of Epstein's victims, but Judge Preska said she would be releasing them as much of the information within was already available to the public.

Among the documents was an email from Epstein to Maxwell sent in 2015 that indicated he would offer money to people close to Giuffre who could 'help prove her allegations are false'.

The email read: "You can issue a reward to any of Virginia’s friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false.

"The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy."

According to The Independent, Hawking visited Epstein's private island in 2006 as part of a conference set up by the paedophile in the months before he was first charged with child sex offences.

Stephen Hawking is one of the more than 170 people to be named in the released documents.

Among that number of people named are accusers of Epstein, members of his staff who spoke out about him, those who were witnesses at Maxwell's trial, people who were mentioned during depositions but not accused of any wrongdoing and those who investigated him.

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Also on the list were public figures who were known to have associated with Epstein and whose relationship with him has been documented elsewhere.

The judge said that some of the names would remain redacted from the documents as to not do so would involve identifying people who were sexually abused.

Also among the court documents were claims that Prince Andrew visited Epstein's private island and a previously reported claim of groping which he has denied.

Former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were also named in the released documents, though neither were accused of illegality in them.

Jeffrey Epstein took his own life in 2019 and Ghislaine Maxwell was in 2022 sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.