Victim Civil (S.D. Fla.) — 08-cv-80069

Case 9:08-cv-80069-KAM is the first-filed of the 2008 Florida Jane Doe civil actions against Jeffrey Epstein, and the only one in the cluster that closed in its initial federal posture without ever reaching the merits or producing a settlement. The Complaint was filed in S.D. Fla. on January 24, 2008, docket-stamped January 25, 2008, by Jane Doe No. 1 — a 17-year-old Florida minor — acting through her father as parent and natural guardian, with the plaintiff's father and stepmother also suing in their individual capacities (EFTA02743481). The pleading invoked diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), demanded damages “in excess of $50 million,” and alleged that Epstein, then 52, had sexually assaulted the plaintiff in 2005 when she was 14 years old at his Palm Beach residence as part of a recurring scheme to recruit “economically disadvantaged minor girls.” The case was assigned to Judge Kenneth A. Marra and Magistrate Judge Linnea R. Johnson. Plaintiffs were represented by Jeffrey M. Herman and Stuart S. Mermelstein of Herman & Mermelstein, P.A., and by Theodore J. Leopold of Ricci-Leopold, P.A. The Clerk issued summons on January 24, 2008 (EFTA02743488), and Judge Marra entered the standard scheduling order on January 28, 2008 (EFTA02743489).

Five days after the Complaint was filed, the docket bifurcated into a parental-guardianship dispute. On January 29, 2008, the plaintiff's mother — a Georgia resident — appeared as a putative Intervenor-Plaintiff and filed two coordinated motions through Theodore Leopold of Ricci-Leopold, P.A.: (i) a Motion to Intervene under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b) attaching a proposed Intervenor's Complaint (Doc 5; EFTA02743503, EFTA00313578) with the Intervenor's Complaint at Doc 5-2 (EFTA00234035); and (ii) a Motion to Stay Proceedings Pending Jane Doe No. 1 Reaching Age of Majority (Doc 4; EFTA02743494, EFTA00313599) supported by the mother's affidavit at Doc 4-1 (EFTA02743491, EFTA00234033) averring that the father had filed the lawsuit “without the knowledge, consultation or consent” of the minor plaintiff, that the minor would turn 18 on May 13, 2008, and that the daughter “does not want this lawsuit to be prosecuted on her behalf” by her father.

The plaintiffs' counsel responded on February 13, 2008 with a Memorandum of Law in Opposition to the stay (Doc 7; EFTA02743512, EFTA00234045, EFTA00188252), arguing the stay motion was procedurally defective for lack of an accompanying memorandum and substantively defective because a Palm Beach County Circuit Court family-division order had previously granted full custody of the minor to the father (the Custodial Parent Modification agreement attached as Doc 7-2; EFTA00234050, EFTA02743506). The same day, plaintiffs noticed non-opposition to the mother's intervention (Doc 8; EFTA00234056). Nine days later, on February 22, 2008, plaintiffs filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Without Prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A) (Doc 9; EFTA00234058), and on February 28, 2008, Judge Marra entered the Final Order of Dismissal closing the case and denying all pending motions as moot (Doc 10, docketed February 29, 2008; EFTA00234029).

The case did not end with the federal dismissal. A 2018 internal lawsuit-tracking summary circulated within the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida lists the disposition of 08-cv-80069 as “voluntarily dismissed, unclear if settled” alongside its sister Doe cases (EFTA00078630). Per the procedural recital in the July 21, 2008 Notice of Removal in the related 08-cv-80804 action, the same plaintiff re-filed her allegations in Palm Beach County Circuit Court on March 6, 2008 — this time suing through her mother as parent and natural guardian — in Doe v. Epstein, Case No. 50 2008 CA 006596 XXXX MB. That state-court action was removed to S.D. Fla. on July 21, 2008 and re-docketed as 9:08-cv-80804-KAM. The EFTA corpus does not contain an order ruling on the substantive sufficiency of the original 80069 complaint, an answer or motion to dismiss by Epstein, or any settlement document for 08-cv-80069.

The DOJ corpus contains 37 EFTA-stamped documents and 10 emails linked to 08-cv-80069. The federal docket from filing to dismissal — Documents 1 through 10 — is substantially complete in the sample, with several entries appearing in two parallel scans (one set in the EFTA02743xxx range and one set in the EFTA00234xxx and EFTA00313xxx ranges).

The initiating documents are present: the seven-page Complaint signed by Herman & Mermelstein and Ricci-Leopold dated January 24, 2008 (Doc 1; EFTA02743481), the AO-440 Civil Summons issued by the Clerk the same day (Doc 2; EFTA02743488), and Judge Marra's January 28, 2008 Order Requiring Counsel to Confer and File Joint Scheduling Report (Doc 3; EFTA02743489). The mother's January 29, 2008 motions and supporting filings are in the corpus in two scans each: the Motion to Stay (Doc 4) at EFTA02743494 and EFTA00313599; the Motion to Stay's Affidavit Exhibit A (Doc 4-1) at EFTA02743491 and EFTA00234033 (the latter mis-classified as a certificate of service in the corpus metadata but in fact bearing the Motion to Stay caption); and the Affidavit text body (Doc 4-2) at EFTA00234030; the Motion to Intervene (Doc 5) at EFTA02743503 and EFTA00313578 with the supporting memorandum and proposed Intervenor's Complaint package (Doc 5-1) at EFTA02743496 and EFTA00234042 and the Intervenor's Complaint itself (Doc 5-2) at EFTA00234035.

The February 13, 2008 opposition tranche is present: the Plaintiffs' Memorandum of Law in Opposition to the Motion to Stay (Doc 7) at EFTA02743512 and at EFTA00234045 (an unredacted scan revealing names) and at EFTA00188252 (a redacted scan); and the family-court Custodial Parent Modification (Doc 7-2) attached as Exhibit A to the opposition at EFTA00234050 and EFTA02743506. The February 14–15, 2008 plaintiffs' Notice of Non-Opposition to Intervention (Doc 8) is at EFTA00234056. The case-ending pair is at EFTA00234058 (Doc 9; the February 22, 2008 Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Without Prejudice signed by Jeffrey Herman) and EFTA00234029 (Doc 10; Judge Marra's February 28, 2008 Final Order of Dismissal entered February 29).

Three EFTAs in the sample are not 80069 docket entries but are linked to this case because they reference or post-date it: the 68-page CM/ECF docket sheet for the related case 08-cv-80804, downloaded October 8, 2008 (EFTA00175521); a five-page motion to proceed anonymously filed in the parallel 09-cv-80591 Doe action (EFTA02738205); and a 213-page Kirkland & Ellis fax-cover discovery transmission from July 29, 2011 sent by Sandra Musumeci on behalf of Jay P. Lefkowitz, P.C. (EFTA00180294). A 2018 USAO-SDFL internal summary spreadsheet listing every Doe case against Epstein (EFTA00078630) classifies 08-cv-80069 as “voluntarily dismissed, unclear if settled” — the corpus's only direct statement of disposition. The corpus does not contain any answer or substantive motion by Epstein in 08-cv-80069, any deposition transcript taken under this docket number, any state-court filing from the March 6, 2008 re-filed Palm Beach Circuit Court action prior to its July 2008 removal, or any settlement agreement.