Names hang in the balance.

A Manhattan court is deciding how to unseal hundreds of pages of court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, and whether it will keep names included therein under wraps or expose them. The documents in question are from a previous defamation case that one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, brought against Epstein friend (whom the New York Post has dubbed his “alleged procuress”) Ghislaine Maxwell for calling Giuffre a liar after she publicized her allegations against Epstein and Maxwell. (The defamation case was settled out of court.) Approximately 2,000 pages of court documents were recently unsealed, and those revealed, among other things, the alleged methods Maxwell used to get and groom girls for Epstein and his friends. (Maxwell has repeatedly denied any involvement in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking network.) They’ve driven intense interest in the extent of Maxwell’s role in Epstein’s exploits, and U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman has said the Southern District of New York’s investigation will continue despite Epstein’s death by suicide while in prison on August 10.

Besides Maxwell, others connected to Epstein have been subject to speculative scrutiny, which has exploded since his death. Who knew what when? Who did what? Who has information and who shares blame? It stands to reason that any of the other high-powered former friends of the embattled pedophile possibly named in the suit would be worried. Some names found in his little black book, published by Gawker in 2015, include Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew.

On Tuesday, in what the Post called a “surprise motion,” a John Doe asked Manhattan federal judge Loretta Preska to keep the identities of those mentioned in the currently sealed documents anonymous. This man’s lawyers wrote, “As a non-party to these proceedings, Doe lacks specific knowledge about the contents of the Sealed Materials. But it is clear that these materials implicate the privacy and reputational interests of many persons other than the two primary parties to this action, Giuffre and Maxwell.”

They added in the motion that the documents include a “range of allegations of sexual acts involving [Giuffre] and non-parties to this litigation, some famous, some not; the identities of non-parties who either allegedly engaged in sexual acts with [Giuffre] or who allegedly facilitated such acts.”

But as of Wednesday after a hearing, Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley told the Post that “there’s no agreement. Our proposal is to redact only Social Security numbers, the names of minor victims, and any confidential medical information.”

So the names hang in the balance—potentially hundreds of names, as Maxwell’s lawyer warned in court on Wednesday. No matter what happens, the fallout from Epstein’s life and death seems to have only just begun.

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