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)

Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman has been following the Jeffrey Epstein case very closely and he reports that as early as the next few days, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will release approximately 2,000 pages of documents.

According to the court’s three-judge panel, the documents will implicate “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.”

Attorney David Boies, who represents Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, told Sherman the documents were filed during a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Giuffre, a former Mar-a-Lago locker-room attendant, against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.”

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

A second attorney involved in the case told Sherman, “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It’s going to be contagion numbers.”

Yikes.

One of Sherman’s sources told him that Epstein “collected people, that’s what he did.” Well, it’s a safe bet that some of those people are more than a little bit nervous about this latest turn of events. Given the circles in which Epstein traveled, many of these names will likely be familiar. Sherman describes the case as an asteroid poised to strike the elite world in which Epstein moved. He notes that even after Epstein was forced to register as a sex offender, he continued to cavort among the rich and famous. And now, many of these people are moving heaven and earth to distance themselves from him.

For example, several years ago, Epstein attended a dinner party in Palo Alto at the home of LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. According to Sherman:

At the dinner, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. (“Mark met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner honoring scientists that was not organized by Epstein,” Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBolt told me. “Mark did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner.”) In an email, Elon Musk responded: “I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so, Epstein is obviously a creep and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine. Several years ago, I was at his house in Manhattan for about 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon with Talulah [Riley], as she was curious about meeting this strange person for a novel she was writing. We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird art. He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.”

A source told Sherman that Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, said to be one of the largest private residences in the city, “welcomed a steady stream of the Davos crowd in the past decade.” The source added that Bill Gates, Larry Summers, and Steve Bannon visited the house.”

Another name that comes up frequently is that of Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz. He spoke to Sherman earlier this week and said, “I want everything to come out! I’m not afraid of anything because I did nothing wrong.”

Dershowitz told Sherman:

He’d been friends with Epstein since 1996, when they were introduced at a party on Martha’s Vineyard by Lynn Forester de Rothschild. “She begged me to meet him. She told me, ‘here’s this smart academic.’” A few days later, Epstein invited Dershowitz to Les Wexner’s 59th birthday party at Wexner’s mansion in New Albany, Ohio. “It’s a tradition that Jeff invited the smartest person he met that year. He told them I was the smartest.” They remained close for years. Dershowitz strenuously denied ever participating in Epstein’s underage sex ring and said he’d only been in Epstein’s presence with his wife. “I got one massage!” he told me. “It was from a 50-year-old Russian woman named Olga. And I kept my shorts on. I didn’t even like it. I’m not a massage guy.”

I tend to believe Dershowitz for two reasons. I think he’s too smart to get involved in a situation like that and also, he’s not trying to deny or minimize his relationship with Epstein.

We’ll see what the next few days brings. In the meantime, Epstein remains behind bars until his trial. His bail was denied earlier today because he is considered a flight risk.