“Recent court filings, both in federal and state court, have raised new allegations about his involvement in a wider sex trafficking ring,” the Miami Herald writes in its Motion to Intervene and unseal records in a case involving Jeffrey Epstein. The full motion is here, and Cernovich readers will find it interesting because it’s one of the free speech case I’m involved in.

Over a year ago, at great financial cost and risk to my safety, I sought to uncover records that could implicate Epstein and others in a sex-trafficking case. Sources within the national security community told me to never mention Epstein’s name again. “You did what you always do, which is to rush in, and you have no f-cking idea what you just got yourself into,” one source told me.

Now that the Herald is involved, I can talk about the case again.

The Herald writes in its motion:

For over three years, the Miami Herald has reported on and investigated Mr. Epstein and others who were involved in the sexual abuse of underage girls. Recent court filings, both in federal and state court, have raised new allegations about his involvement in a wider sextrafficking ring. The Miami Herald has covered, among other subjects, the initial investigation by the Palm Beach state attorney, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the negotiations between those law enforcement agencies and Mr. Epstein’s legal defense team, and the ultimate decision by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to sign a non-prosecution agreement that was negotiated in secret and sealed in return for a guilty plea to a lesser state crime. The deal, which was not revealed until well after it was signed and Mr. Epstein was sentenced, resulted in him serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence. He now lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Specifically, Court transcripts in the Giuffre/Maxwell case make several references to Ms. Maxwell being the” madame” of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking enterprise, and to witnesses who may be able to provide evidence of a wider, cross-border sex-trafficking ring.

Although the media unfairly maligns me as a conspiracy theorist, here are the facts.

I filed the first lawsuit for these records. The trial court denied my motion on flimsy grounds, and I appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief supporting my lawsuit:

Michael Cernovich sought access to certain sealed judicial records in Giuffre v. Maxwell, a defamation action in the Southern District of New York. The district court entered a standing order in the case permitting the parties to file documents under seal without first seeking judicial approval, resulting in the filing of the majority of the substantive papers in the case under seal, including the papers in support of an opposition to the Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The amicus brief argues, among other things, that the district court’s order permitting the sealing is contrary to the First Amendment and common law presumptions of access, and there are no compelling or countervailing interests justifying sealing in this case.

I’m involved in litigation against a billionaire with the power to have me killed, and my legal arguments are supported by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and now the Miami Herald is seeking the same records I sought.

As a preliminary matter, one of the main reasons for closure identified in the Court’s denial of the Cernovich Motion – the ongoing status of the litigation – is no longer relevant because the case has settled. Accordingly there is no more risk that the “release of contested confidential discovery materials could conceivably taint the jury pool.” (ECF No. 892, at 7.) Any weight given to the fact that, at the time of the denial of the Cernovich motion, the case was “mere weeks from assembling” trial, should be disregarded. The legal rights of the parties are now settled, and if the public’s interest in this matter was at all tempered in light of the on-going litigation, it is now renewed.

What’s the Gorilla Mindset lesson?

How many journalists in a career can say they broke a story that led to a Congressman resigning, and filed a lawsuit that was supported by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press?

There’s no magic. I’m not special. I simply applied the principles of Gorilla Mindset, which you can buy here, to media and journalism.

P.S. This litigation is expensive.

If you want to support it, you may do so here.