Victim Civil (S.D. Fla.) — 08-cv-80381

Case 08-cv-80381 was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on April 14, 2008 by a plaintiff proceeding pseudonymously as 'Jane Doe No. 5' against Jeffrey Epstein. According to the docket sheet in the corpus (EFTA00175835), the action was assigned to U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra and Magistrate Judge Linnea R. Johnson, designated a member case to lead case 9:08-cv-80119-KAM, and prosecuted by Mermelstein & Horowitz, P.A. (Stuart S. Mermelstein, Adam D. Horowitz, Jessica D. Arbour) together with Herman & Mermelstein (Jeffrey M. Herman). Epstein was represented by Robert D. Critton, Jr. of Burman, Critton, Luttier & Coleman and Jack A. Goldberger of Atterbury, Goldberger & Weiss.

The Second Amended Complaint (EFTA02741765, filed February 27, 2009) frames the case as a diversity action under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 seeking damages in excess of $50 million. The plaintiff is identified as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia who, in or about 2002–2003 and at approximately age 15–16, was drawn into Epstein's Palm Beach 'massage' recruitment scheme. The complaint describes Epstein as a New York-resident financier with homes in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Palm Beach, alleges a pattern of using young women to recruit underage girls who were paid roughly $200–$300 per encounter, and pleads claims sounding in battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and related theories of childhood sexual abuse.

08-cv-80381 was one of a wave of substantially similar Jane Doe civil suits filed in S.D. Fla. during 2008–2009 against Epstein. By mid-2009 the actions were managed jointly for discovery purposes, and many filings in this case bear consolidated captions naming Doe No. 2 (08-cv-80119), Doe No. 3 (08-cv-80232), Doe No. 4 (08-cv-80380) and Doe No. 5 (08-cv-80381) on a single header (e.g., EFTA02741655, EFTA02741708). The filings ride directly on 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 in June 2008 to two Florida state offenses in Palm Beach County (case nos. 2006-CF-009454 and 2008-CF-009381). A July 10, 2008 'Notification of Identified Victim' letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office to plaintiff's counsel — filed as Exhibit A to a docket entry in this case (EFTA02741597) — confirms that Doe No. 5 was identified by DOJ as a federal victim under 18 U.S.C. § 3509(d) and § 2255.

The sampled docket reflects an aggressively contested discovery and motions phase: Epstein's motion to set aside the clerk's default (EFTA02741556, July 2008), an Epstein motion to compel sweeping interrogatories about the plaintiff's prior sexual history (EFTA02742013, April 2009), Epstein's First Amended Answer asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination as to virtually every substantive paragraph (EFTA02742343, June 2009), and an Epstein motion to stay the civil action while the federal grand jury investigation remained nominally pending (EFTA02742136, May 2009). The latest captioned filings in the sample run into 2010, consistent with public reporting that — as with the other consolidated Florida Doe suits — the matter resolved short of trial via confidential settlement. The corpus does not contain a settlement agreement, final judgment, or dismissal order for 08-cv-80381 in this sample.

The DOJ corpus contains 605 EFTA-stamped pages and 30 emails linked to 08-cv-80381, drawn primarily from federal court filings under the 9:08-cv-80381-KAM caption and from parallel docket entries in the consolidated sister cases. Document types in the sample include the CM/ECF docket sheet itself (EFTA00175835), the operative Second Amended Complaint (EFTA02741765), Epstein's First Amended Answer pleading the Fifth Amendment paragraph by paragraph (EFTA02742343), Epstein's discovery motions and replies (EFTA02742013, EFTA02742136), an early notice of permanent appearance (EFTA02741510), the 2006 Palm Beach County state grand jury indictment of Epstein attached as a defense exhibit (EFTA02741896), the U.S. Attorney's July 10, 2008 victim notification letter (EFTA02741597), and Plaintiff's Second Supplemental Response to Epstein's First Request to Produce (EFTA01099975, March 2010), which lists medical/psychiatric expense documentation produced as damages discovery.

Many of the consolidated-caption filings touch 08-cv-80381 not because they were filed in that docket but because parallel pleadings under 08-cv-80119, 08-cv-80232, 08-cv-80380, 08-cv-80994, 09-cv-80591 and 10-cv-80309 referenced Doe No. 5 alongside the other plaintiffs. A representative example is the July 29, 2009 declaration of Jane Doe No. 4 (EFTA02742434) describing Epstein investigators contacting her former employer, ex-boyfriend, and co-workers — filed on this docket as evidence supporting protective-order practice that ran across all of the Florida Doe suits. The sample also includes Jane Doe No. 103's March 2010 motion to seal and proceed anonymously in 10-cv-80309 (EFTA02739145), illustrating how the Florida Doe wave continued to expand into 2010. The sample does not contain a settlement agreement, final judgment, or trial-stage exhibits for 08-cv-80381 itself.