Lawyers for alleged victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — citing a “state of emergency” — are urging two New York federal judges to order the immediate takedown of the Justice Department’s Epstein Files website.
Lawyers have faced widespread failures before The Justice Department will redact the names and identifying information of Epstein’s victims, according to a copy of a letter obtained by ABC News on Sunday.
“For Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, every hour matters,” attorneys Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards wrote in the letter to U.S. District Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer.
The lawyers write that since the Justice Department began posting materials on the website last month, they have been in near-constant contact with the department to correct redaction errors and that they have an expectation that “such failures will not be repeated.”
“This expectation was shattered on January 30, 2026, when the Department of Justice committed what may be the most egregious violation of a victim’s privacy in a single day in U.S. history,” the letter said.
Documents included in the US Department of Justice’s release of the Jeffrey Epstein files were photographed on Friday, January 2, 2026.
John Elswick/AP
The attorneys — who represent more than 200 of Epstein’s alleged victims — say that in the past 48 hours they have reported “thousands of redaction failures on behalf of nearly 100 survivors whose lives were upended by the Department of Justice’s latest release,” according to the letter.
They cite examples of FBI documents with full names left unredacted, including the names of victims who were minors at the time of their exploitation. Other victims have had their names, banking information and addresses published without redacting, the letter says. The letter says that in one of the emails listing 32 minor victims, only one name was deleted.
The letter includes quotes from some of the women who said their names were revealed in the document disclosure.
One victim, identified as Jane Doe, wrote: “I never came forward! I am now being harassed by the media and others.” “This is devastating to my life. …Please withdraw my name immediately, as every minute these documents with my name appear, they cause me more harm. …Please, I beg you to remove my name!!!”
Another victim quoted in the letter said that revealing her information was “extremely distressing” and “puts me and my child in potential physical danger.”
The Ministry of Justice acknowledged that some errors were inevitable in disclosing a document of this size, but pledged to correct any redaction errors brought to its attention. The administration encouraged victims or their attorneys to report errors and promised to temporarily remove documents until appropriate redactions were made.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s actions even as survivors and lawmakers criticized the disclosure of the Epstein files as inadequate and riddled with redaction errors.
“We’ve gone to great lengths, as I explained on Friday, to make sure that we protect the victims,” Blanche told ABC News’ “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos. “Every time we hear from a victim or their attorney that they believe their name was not redacted correctly, we correct that immediately.”
Blanche said that redaction errors only affect “about .001% of all material.”
“We knew this – I said this on Friday – that the nature of this type of review of course was – the amount of material that was reviewed, that there would be times when this would happen. And so, we’re working hard to make sure that we get that right, and I expect that to continue,” he said.
In their letter, the lawyers say the Justice Department’s actions are inadequate to deal with the scope of the problem.
“It is no longer ethical, moral, or responsible to attempt to address these abuses through the boring Department of Justice game. This was not a complicated task at all. The Department of Justice has had the names of the victims it has promised to redact for months,” the attorneys wrote. “There is no conceivable degree of institutional incompetence sufficient to explain the scale, consistency and persistence of the failures that have occurred.”
The lawyers called on the judges to intervene urgently.
“This court is the last line of defense for victims who were promised protection but were instead put in danger. Judicial intervention is not only appropriate, it is necessary.”