A group of survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration and Google on Thursday over the release of their personal information found in the files made public by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The United States, acting through the DOJ, made a deliberate policy choice to prioritize rapid, large-volume disclosure over protection of Epstein survivors’ privacy,” the plaintiffs argued.
The complaint adds that the DOJ “outed approximately 100 survivors of the convicted sexual predator, publishing their private information and identifying them to the world.”
In their lawsuit, the survivors said that despite the DOJ taking down their information after it was published in late 2025 and earlier this year, “online entities like Google continuously republish it, refusing victims’ pleas to take it down.”
“Survivors now face renewed trauma. Strangers call them, email them, threaten their physical safety, and accuse them of conspiring with Epstein when they are, in reality, Epstein’s victims,” the lawsuit states.
The DOJ published more than 3 million pages of records related to its probe into Epstein following Congress and President Donald Trump’s ratification of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
On Feb. 2, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton sent a letter to Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer in the Southern District of New York, stating that the DOJ was "in the process" of removing files that included "victim-identifying information."
“The Department has worked all hours through the weekend from the point when the first victim-related concerns were raised,” the letter states. “The Department now has taken down several thousands of documents and media that may have inadvertently included victim-identifying information due to various factors, including technical or human error.”
The plaintiffs are seeking at least $1,000 per survivor from the DOJ and punitive damages “in amounts sufficient to punish and deter” Google.
