Epstein Data Wiki

Sigrid S. McCawley

Properties2
tagsperson, lawyer, boies-schiller-flexner, florida, victims-counsel
aliasesSigrid McCawley

17 min read

FirmBoies Schiller Flexner LLP, 401 East Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale12
Bar admissionsFlorida; District of Columbia32
PositionPartner; described as a managing partner of the firm in a June 2023 court declaration4
Acting for Epstein survivors sinceJune 2014, according to a June 2023 declaration by David Boies and Bradley Edwards4
Principal mattersGiuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.); civil actions against the executors of Epstein’s estate; United States v. Maxwell, No. 20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), for intervenor Boies Schiller Flexner and the victims it represents; Jane Doe 1 v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 22-cv-10019 (S.D.N.Y.)1524

Sigrid S. McCawley is an American trial lawyer and a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who has acted for women alleging abuse by Jeffrey Epstein since 2014.14 She appeared for Virginia Giuffre in the defamation action Giuffre v. Maxwell in the Southern District of New York and took Ghislaine Maxwell’s deposition in that case in April 2016.16 She appeared in civil actions against the executors of Epstein’s estate, in Maxwell’s federal criminal case for the firm and the victims it represents, and was part of the Boies Schiller team in the class action against JPMorgan Chase.524 She corresponded with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York after Epstein’s arrest in July 2019 about her clients’ contact with the government.789 Alan Dershowitz alleged that McCawley and David Boies had taken part in an “extortion plot”; the complaint in the defamation action Giuffre brought against him, with the firm as her counsel, pleaded that the allegation was false, and it was the ground on which the district court disqualified the firm from that case.1011

Giuffre v. Maxwell, 2015–2017

A docket record in an SDNY grand-jury production for Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 1:15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), filed September 21, 2015 before Judge Robert W. Sweet, lists McCawley first among plaintiff’s attorneys, with Meredith L. Schultz of Boies Schiller, Bradley J. Edwards, J. Stanley Pottinger and Paul G. Cassell.1 A June 2023 declaration by David Boies and Bradley Edwards states that Boies and McCawley brought their first case for Epstein survivors against Maxwell in 2015.4

Maxwell was deposed on April 22, 2016 at 575 Lexington Avenue in New York. The videographer recorded that the deposition was taken “at the request of Sigrid McCawley of Boies Schiller & Flexner,” and McCawley entered her appearance for Giuffre with Meredith Schultz.6

On September 13, 2016 McCawley wrote to Judge Sweet giving notice that Nadia Marcinkova and Sarah Kellen had not appeared for depositions set for July 21, 2016 at the firm’s New York offices after the court authorised service by alternative means, that motions for a finding of civil contempt had been filed against each of them on July 25, and that no response had been filed by the return date of August 25; she asked the court to order the depositions, costs and a daily civil penalty.12 A memorandum filed in Maxwell’s criminal case records that the action was settled and dismissed with prejudice on a joint stipulation of May 25, 2017, shortly before trial, and that the settlement terms remain confidential.13

A letter of February 28, 2019 from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to Judge Sweet, filed under seal in support of an application under the All Writs Act, states that a grand jury subpoena had been served on Boies Schiller Flexner requiring production of discovery material from that litigation, that the firm did not intend to contest it, and that the government sought an order permitting the firm to comply notwithstanding the protective order.14 The letter concerns the firm and does not name McCawley.14

The Dershowitz allegations

A document headed “Affidavit of Alan Dershowitz Regarding Potential Extortion Conspiracy,” faxed on September 30, 2016, alleges that lawyers acting for a client of Boies Schiller conspired to extract money from Leslie Wexner by threatening him with allegations.10 It states that Wexner’s lawyer John Zieger told Dershowitz that a claim had been asserted against Wexner on the client’s behalf, that “the allegations in Mr. Wexner’s regard were completely fabricated,” and that Wexner “would not pay” the client or her representatives “any amount whatsoever.”10 The document also names McCawley as having made a further, specific allegation on the client’s behalf; the client’s name is redacted throughout the document.10 Wexner has said publicly that he was “NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment” and that he was deceived by Epstein; that statement was made about Epstein and does not address these allegations.15

Dershowitz also put the allegation to the Florida Bar. On November 6, 2017 Paul G. Cassell wrote to the Bar, at the request of counsel for Boies and McCawley, that he understood Dershowitz to have alleged that “in around fall 2014, Mr. Boies and Ms. McCawley were involved in an ‘extortion plot’ to obtain money from Mr. Wexner”; that he was “not aware of any such plot or even any suggestion of such a plot”; and that in his view the bar complaint was “frivolous.”16 Cassell’s letter was filed as an exhibit in Giuffre v. Dershowitz on July 3, 2019.16 The letter is Cassell’s statement, not McCawley’s; no statement by McCawley on the allegation appears among the documents cited on this page, and the outcome of the bar complaint is not established by them.

The allegation was central to Giuffre v. Dershowitz, No. 19 Civ. 3377 (S.D.N.Y.), in which Boies Schiller acted for the plaintiff. In an opinion of October 16, 2019 Judge Loretta A. Preska denied Dershowitz’s motion to dismiss and granted his motion to disqualify the firm, recording that the complaint pleaded the extortion statements to be false and defamatory, that Dershowitz’s defence was that they were true, and that he had stated his intention to call Boies, McCawley and other firm attorneys as witnesses.11

Separately, on April 11, 2016 McCawley signed, for a non-party, a notice in Edwards and Cassell v. Dershowitz, No. CACE 15-000072 (17th Judicial Circuit, Broward County, Florida), asking the court to retain jurisdiction over the non-party’s pending motion to strike and for sanctions notwithstanding the parties’ joint stipulation of dismissal of April 8, 2016; Jack Scarola signed for the plaintiffs.3 In the same November 2017 letter Cassell wrote that he and Edwards had “requested and helped to arrange for Ms. McCawley to provide that separate representation” for Giuffre when she became a witness in the lawsuit.16

Freedom of Information Act request, 2015

On February 26, 2015 Boies, Schiller & Flexner wrote to the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section and to a second Bureau address, on firm letterhead and over the reference initials “SSM”, requesting under the Freedom of Information Act copies of pictures, videos and documents relating to a client whose name is redacted in the released copy.17 The letter states that the client was interviewed by the FBI and that an FD-302 report was later entered. It lists five numbered residences owned by Epstein from which it says the material had been collected, three of them legible (the Palm Beach house, Little St. James and the New York townhouse) and two redacted; it limits the request to the period June 1999 to December 2002, offers to pay duplication fees up to $5,000, and encloses a Certification of Identity from the client.17

The federal investigation and victim services, 2019–2020

On March 20, 2019 McCawley emailed an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, copying FBI personnel, with a contact number for Anthony “Tony” Figueroa, whose details the prosecutor had asked her for. She wrote: “if you can get Tony he will likely have very helpful information for you about Epstein and others but my impression is he does not like being dragged into things and he is not the most cooperative person and my recollection is he has had a rough past so I don’t know what kind of response you will get from him.”7 The same thread records that she arranged the use of a Boies Schiller conference room for a visit by the prosecutors and FBI agents that week.7

An internal U.S. Attorney’s Office email of July 19, 2019 asking for corrections to the office’s Victim Notification System records lists, among the edits, “Sigrid McCawley, the attorney who represents several victims, is misspelled ‘Singrid’.”18 The correction was requested by a prosecutor, not by McCawley.18

The FBI’s New York Field Office invited law firms on September 27, 2019 to send clients to Victim Services Division briefings at the Miami Field Office on October 15 and the New York Field Office on October 23. McCawley told the victim specialist on September 30 that she would attend: “I will be present along with the victims I represent who plan to attend.”8 On October 4 she reported that eight of her clients planned to attend the New York session and that she would also attend the Florida session if any client chose it; on October 9 she discussed with the specialist which of her clients had not yet been interviewed and proposed scheduling interviews around the briefing.9 On October 14 she asked for a printable version of the briefing form for a client who could not complete it online.19 An RSVP tracker circulated on November 8, 2020 for a briefing by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the FBI Miami Field Office on November 12 lists McCawley among the attorneys attending with clients, with Brad Edwards, Paul Cassell and Jack Scarola.20

In November 2019 an officer of France’s Office central pour la répression des violences aux personnes, who wrote that his unit was “in charge of the french side of the Epstein/Brunel Case,” reached McCawley through an intermediary. She spoke with the officers on November 20 and wrote the next day that they had “reached out to certain government officials in the US to try to coordinate your efforts but had not received any substantive communication or assistance,” and put them in touch with prosecutors in New York.21 See Jean-Luc Brunel.

Litigation against the estate, Maxwell and the banks

On November 21, 2019 McCawley applied for admission pro hac vice in Farmer v. Indyke, No. 1:19-cv-10475 (S.D.N.Y.), one of the civil actions against Darren K. Indyke and Richard D. Kahn as executors of Epstein’s estate, and against Ghislaine Maxwell.5 The June 2023 declaration by Boies and Edwards lists five such actions in which the firms acted: Farmer v. Indyke (1:19-cv-10474 and 1:19-cv-10475), Helm v. Indyke (1:19-cv-10476), Bryant v. Indyke (1:19-cv-10479) and Doe 1000 v. Indyke (1:19-cv-10577), as well as representation of survivors who applied to the Epstein Victim’s Compensation Fund and of a survivor in Giuffre v. Andrew, No. 21-cv-6702.4 On March 24, 2020 McCawley’s office served a notice of deposition of Maxwell in one of the estate actions.22

On March 26, 2021 McCawley declared, under penalty of perjury and with a conformed electronic signature, in support of her admission pro hac vice in United States v. Maxwell, No. 20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.), signing as “Attorney for Intervenor Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and the victims it represents.”2 She submitted the victim impact statement of Maria Farmer to the court on June 22, 2022 and the statement of Annie Farmer of December 15, 2020 in the bail proceedings.2324

The joint declaration of Boies and Edwards of June 22, 2023, filed in support of preliminary approval of the class settlement in Jane Doe 1 v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10019 (S.D.N.Y.), names McCawley among the Boies Schiller partners on the litigation team and states that the firms decided in early 2021 to develop cases against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank.4

Business Insider reported on November 20, 2025 that Harry Beller had “invoked the Fifth Amendment instead of responding to document subpoenas or substantively answering questions” in a deposition in litigation McCawley had brought against Indyke and Kahn, and that McCawley told the reporter she regarded him as significant to the matter. The same report said Beller “hasn’t been accused of any crimes and there is no record of a federal agency pursuing an enforcement action against him”; no response from Beller to McCawley’s characterisation is recorded on this page.25

Statements reported in FBI news briefings

The FBI’s daily news briefing of July 19, 2019 summarised a New York Post report of the previous day on Judge Richard Berman’s decision to deny Epstein bail. According to that summary, McCawley said the ruling “made it ‘safer for everyone’” to come forward, predicted that the number of accusers then known was “just the tip of the iceberg,” said she had signed up four new clients following Epstein’s July 6 arrest, and would not identify them but said she had encouraged them to report the alleged abuse to the FBI.26

The FBI’s daily news briefing of July 10, 2025 summarised a NewsNation report of the previous day describing McCawley as “an attorney representing people suing Jeffrey Epstein’s former accountant — one of the last Epstein cases in federal court.” It quotes her telling Elizabeth Vargas Reports: “What’s really just astonishing about this recent disclosure from the government is that they know they are sitting on a treasure trove of information, and they’re not turning it over,” and “I’ve worked on these cases for over 10 years now; there’s a plethora of information that the public has not been able to see relating to Epstein and his co-conspirators.” The briefing adds that McCawley said the information ranges from financial records to other telling information from computers and other items that could help understand how Epstein ran a sex-trafficking scheme for more than two decades without conviction, and that she criticised the Trump administration for what the briefing describes as contradictory action against its promise to be “an open book.”27

Coverage

  • New York Post, July 18, 2019 (Denney and Golding), as summarised in the FBI daily news briefing of July 19, 2019.
  • NewsNation, Elizabeth Vargas Reports, July 9, 2025, as summarised in the FBI daily news briefing of July 10, 2025.
  • Jacob Shamsian, “Jeffrey Epstein’s accountant of 22 years raised alarm bells at JPMorgan. Now Congress wants answers.” Business Insider, November 20, 2025.

Footnotes

  1. Docket record for Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 1:15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), filed September 21, 2015, within an SDNY grand-jury production; the single released page carries the printed folio “Page 4.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01387852 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. Declaration of Sigrid S. McCawley in support of application for admission pro hac vice, United States v. Maxwell, No. 20-cr-00330, Document 182-1, filed March 26, 2021. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00002807 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. Plaintiffs and Non-Party’s Notice Regarding the Parties’ Joint Sitpulation [sic] of Dismissal, Edwards and Cassell v. Dershowitz, No. CACE 15-000072, e-filed April 11, 2016, pp.1–2. The document’s own title misspells “Stipulation” as printed. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00605440 ↩ ↩2

  4. Joint Declaration of David Boies and Bradley Edwards in support of preliminary approval of class action settlement, Jane Doe 1 v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10019 (JSR) (S.D.N.Y.), Document 181, filed June 22, 2023, pp.2, 6 and 7 of 10. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01652881 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  5. Declaration of Sigrid S. McCawley in support of application for admission pro hac vice, Farmer v. Indyke, No. 1:19-cv-10475 (LGS), Document 9-1, filed November 21, 2019. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02777723 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Videotaped deposition of Ghislaine Maxwell, Giuffre v. Maxwell, April 22, 2016, transcript p.3 as the reader opens it. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00003556 ↩ ↩2

  7. Sigrid McCawley to an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York, March 20, 2019, “RE: Friday meetings,” pp.1–2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00100310 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. Sigrid McCawley to an FBI victim specialist, New York Field Office, September 30, 2019, p.1; the Victim Services Division invitation of September 27, 2019 is at pp.2–3. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01649915 ↩ ↩2

  9. Email chain, Sigrid McCawley and FBI victim specialists, October 4–10, 2019, pp.1–2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01650282 ↩ ↩2

  10. “Affidavit of Alan Dershowitz Regarding Potential Extortion Conspiracy,” fax received September 30, 2016, p.5. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01681842 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  11. Giuffre v. Dershowitz, 410 F. Supp. 3d 564 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 16, 2019) (Preska, J.), No. 19 Civ. 3377, reported copy in the release at pp.6 and 13. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00100685 ↩ ↩2

  12. Sigrid S. McCawley to Judge Robert W. Sweet, September 13, 2016, filed as Document 433 in Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433-RWS. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00592742 pp.1–2. ↩

  13. Exhibit G to Document 311-4, United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330-PAE, filed July 2, 2021, p.4. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00004924 ↩

  14. United States Attorney, Southern District of New York, to the Honorable Robert W. Sweet, February 28, 2019, filed under seal, In re Application to Unseal Civil Discovery Materials, USAO No. 2018R01618, pp.1–2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01263240 ↩ ↩2

  15. Steve Eder and Emily Steel, “Leslie Wexner Accuses Jeffrey Epstein of Misappropriating ‘Vast Sums of Money,’” New York Times, Aug. 7, 2019, preserved in a DOJ production, reporting a letter Wexner sent to L Brands employees the previous month. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00172284 p.2. ↩

  16. Paul G. Cassell to The Florida Bar, November 6, 2017, “Re: Bar Complaint By Mr. Dershowitz,” filed as Exhibit 4 to Document 36-4 in Giuffre v. Dershowitz, No. 1:19-cv-03377-LAP (S.D.N.Y.), July 3, 2019, at printed pp.2, 5 and 6 of 6. https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016198 · https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016201 · https://epstein-data.com/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016202 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. Boies, Schiller & Flexner to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, February 26, 2015, within an FBI FOIPA file copy; pp.2–3 as the reader opens the file. Read at the image at 300 dpi: the second of the two sheets carries the firm’s letterhead across its head and the reference initials “SSM” at its foot, the letterhead band on the first sheet is covered, and the signature block is not legible, so the letter is attributed here by letterhead and initials rather than by signature. Other pages of the same production are not cited. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01248965 ↩ ↩2

  18. Email thread within the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on Victim Notification System records, July 19–23, 2019, p.2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01649524 ↩ ↩2

  19. Sigrid McCawley to an FBI victim specialist, October 14, 2019, p.2. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01650932 ↩

  20. Briefing RSVP tracker circulated November 8–9, 2020 for a briefing by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General at the FBI Miami Field Office on November 12, 2020, pp.1–2 and 5. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01651588 ↩

  21. Email chain, Office central pour la répression des violences aux personnes, Direction centrale de la police judiciaire, Nanterre, to an intermediary and to Sigrid McCawley, November 19–21, 2019, pp.1–3. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00020911 ↩

  22. Boies Schiller Flexner to defence counsel, March 24, 2020, serving a notice of deposition of Ghislaine Maxwell in an action against the executors of Epstein’s estate, p.1. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00030305 ↩

  23. Victim impact statement of Maria Farmer, submitted by counsel Sigrid S. McCawley, dated June 22, 2022, United States v. Maxwell, Document 674, pp.10–11 of 29. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00010663 ↩

  24. Statement of Annie Farmer, December 15, 2020, submitted by Sigrid S. McCawley, reproduced at pp.38–39 of 176 of the government’s bail-opposition compilation. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00001142 ↩

  25. Jacob Shamsian, “Jeffrey Epstein’s accountant of 22 years raised alarm bells at JPMorgan. Now Congress wants answers.” Business Insider, November 20, 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeffrey-epsteins-accountant-22-years-100002848.html ↩

  26. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 19, 2019, p.11, summarising the New York Post of July 18, 2019 (Denney, Golding). https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01659529 ↩

  27. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 10, 2025, p.3, summarising News Nation Now of July 9, 2025 (Djordjevic). A duplicate copy of the same briefing is at https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655277 p.4. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655264 ↩

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