Victim Civil (S.D. Fla.) — 08-cv-80232

Case 08-cv-80232 was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on March 5, 2008 by a plaintiff proceeding pseudonymously as 'Jane Doe No. 3' against Jeffrey Epstein. The official docket sheet in the corpus (EFTA00175717) confirms the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra and to Magistrate Judge Linnea R. Johnson, pleaded as a 28 U.S.C. § 1332 diversity personal-injury action with a jury demand. Plaintiff was represented by Adam D. Horowitz, Jeffrey M. Herman, and Stuart S. Mermelstein of the Mermelstein & Horowitz / Herman & Mermelstein firm in Miami. Epstein was initially represented by Jack A. Goldberger of Atterbury, Goldberger & Weiss and by Michael R. Tein of Lewis Tein, with Robert D. Critton, Jr. and Michael J. Pike of Burman, Critton, Luttier & Coleman taking over the lead defense role through the discovery phase.

The suit is one of a tightly clustered set of substantially similar Jane Doe civil actions filed against Epstein in S.D. Fla. during 2008-2009. Recurring consolidated captions in the corpus list the related Doe and C.M.A. plaintiffs in lockstep — 08-CV-80119 (Doe No. 2), 08-CV-80232 (Doe No. 3), 08-CV-80380 (Doe No. 4), 08-CV-80381 (Doe No. 5), 08-CV-80994 (Doe No. 6), 08-CV-80993 (Doe No. 7), 08-CV-80811 (C.M.A.), 08-CV-80893 (Jane Doe), 08-CV-80469 (Doe II), 09-CV-80591 (Jane Doe No. 101), 09-CV-80656 (Jane Doe No. 102), and others (EFTA00222754, EFTA00772716, EFTA02738861). On April 28-29, 2009 Judge Marra granted plaintiffs' motion for a protective order and consolidated the Doe actions for purposes of discovery (EFTA00175717 docket entries DE 78 and DE 88), and thereafter ordered counsel to file most discovery and procedural motions in the lead 08-cv-80119 docket only.

These suits arose in the wake of the September 2007 federal Non-Prosecution Agreement between the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and Epstein, which deferred federal charges while Epstein pleaded guilty to two state offenses in Palm Beach County. The NPA's mechanics are described in this case's record by Epstein's own state criminal counsel, Jack Goldberger, in a March 25, 2009 affidavit (EFTA02739544 / DE 56-1) attached to Epstein's motion to stay the civil action: Goldberger averred that the NPA took effect on June 30, 2008, that any federal prosecution remained deferred only so long as the USAO determined Epstein was complying with its terms, and that the USAO had warned that contesting damages, investigating Doe plaintiffs through counsel, or making press statements about the plaintiffs could be treated as a breach. The same affidavit notes that Epstein had submitted a FOIA request to the FBI for documents relating to this and the other Doe cases and that the request was denied because the criminal investigation remained ongoing.

The filings sampled from the corpus track the case through the pleading and contested-discovery phases — service-of-process disputes, an order to show cause why default should not be entered (DE 17), Epstein's unsuccessful motions to seal the existence of the parallel federal investigation (DE 14, 15, 18, 19), partial dismissal of the original complaint and a Second Amended Complaint filed February 27, 2009 (DE 47, DE 50), and an extended round of motions to compel and cross-motions over interrogatories, requests for production, third-party subpoenas, and Epstein's renewed motion to stay the civil action pending the federal NPA's expiration. The latest filings sampled in the consolidated captions run into June 2010. Public reporting and court records outside this corpus indicate the matter, like the other Florida Doe suits, was resolved short of trial via confidential settlement; the corpus itself does not contain a settlement agreement or final disposition order for 08-cv-80232.

The DOJ corpus contains 747 EFTA-stamped pages and 46 emails linked to 08-cv-80232, drawn primarily from federal court filings under the 9:08-cv-80232-KAM caption and from parallel docket entries in the consolidated sister cases. The most directly probative document is the official 15-page CM/ECF civil docket report for 9:08-cv-80232-KAM (EFTA00175717), which lists every entry from the March 5, 2008 complaint and the March 11, 2008 scheduling order through summer 2009 — including Epstein's motion to stay (DE 8), the partly-granted motion to dismiss (DE 41-47) resulting in a February 12, 2009 order and a Second Amended Complaint (DE 50), Epstein's answer and affirmative defenses (DE 61), the cross motions to compel (DE 51, 59, 60), and the April 29, 2009 protective order consolidating the Doe cases for discovery (DE 78 / DE 88).

The sample also includes substantive filings entered directly under the 80232 caption: Jeffrey Herman's July 21, 2008 declaration regarding service of process and the court's order to show cause (EFTA02739317 / DE 21), Goldberger's affidavit on the Non-Prosecution Agreement filed in support of Epstein's motion to stay (EFTA02739544 / DE 56-1), Epstein's May 5, 2009 motion for an extension of time to reply on that motion to stay (EFTA02739833 / DE 81), and Epstein's July 28, 2009 notice of compliance with the court's order on the parties' competing proposed orders for an evidence-preservation protective order (EFTA02740165 / DE 124).

Most of the remaining sampled filings appear in this case's collection because they were entered in the lead 08-cv-80119 docket after consolidation but address the Doe 2-7 group as a whole — for example, the plaintiffs' joint memorandum in opposition to Epstein's motion to stay (EFTA02740946), the plaintiffs' Rule 26(c) opposition to Epstein's discovery into the plaintiffs' sexual histories (EFTA02742834), the plaintiffs' response to Epstein's motion to require the Does to litigate under their real names — supported by a declaration from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Gilbert Kliman opining that public disclosure would cause further psychological harm (EFTA02744655) — and Magistrate Judge Johnson's August 4, 2009 order on a protective-order/treatment-records dispute (EFTA02745623). The corpus also contains Plaintiffs Jane Doe Nos. 101 and 102's July 10, 2009 notice of filing the Non-Prosecution Agreement under seal for in camera review pursuant to the court's July 6, 2009 order (EFTA02745100). The corpus does not contain the underlying Doe No. 3 complaint, the Second Amended Complaint, deposition transcripts of Jane Doe No. 3 herself, a settlement agreement, or any final order of dismissal for 08-cv-80232.