SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
An anonymous victim of Jeffrey Epstein has sued the Trump administration and Google. The class action lawsuit was filed last Thursday. It alleges that the Justice Department released identifying information about herself and other survivors in files related to the convicted sex offender and that Google then republished it. The lawsuit says this has caused survivors renewed trauma. Danielle Bensky is with us now. She's a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse and, I will note, is not a party to this lawsuit. Dani, thanks for joining us.
DANIELLE BENSKY: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
DETROW: You were one of roughly a hundred survivors whose identity and personal information were revealed in these documents. I'm curious what you make of this suit and whether you're considering joining it.
BENSKY: Yeah. I think we just don't have enough information at this time. I think, technically, no class has been certified, so this is just a proposed class. And while I am hoping to be a part of it, I just don't know the ins and the outs of this class action just yet. You know, I'm not a lawyer. I certainly believe that there is tremendous value in anything that can hold the DOJ to account. So that is a really important thing. You know, this fight has always been about holding the power responsible for their actions, whether that is Epstein's orbit of co-conspirators or the DOJ. Just - we need to find accountability.
DETROW: I want to talk more broadly about this because you were among the survivors urging lawmakers to make these documents public. You came on and talked to us about this before they were released. They are then released, and then you realized your name was in them. How did you how did you begin to process that?
BENSKY: Yeah. I think what was so frustrating about that process was that we had been meeting with lawmakers consistently before that. Survivors have - you know, we've been in many offices on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, and we were talking about that safety of the survivors should have been No. 1 in the call for transparency. Yes, we want everything to be exposed, but we wanted to do it in a really safe way. And, you know, they had prolonged this release for so long, and they kept saying, well, we're working on the redactions, and that is why we weren't able to meet the deadline of the 19th, right?
And so that we just had hoped to see so much more respect in handling our information. And when we - you know, when I saw my name, my name was released all three times. Like, in three different batches. So that's where it starts to feel more deliberate in some senses because my lawyer had already contacted the DOJ and said, you know, this name was public. Can you please make sure that in the future it is redacted. And then they still went ahead and released my name again, so...
DETROW: And no changes round to round to round.
BENSKY: Yes.
DETROW: I mean, is that your gut personal feeling that you suspect it might have been intentional?
BENSKY: I didn't want to believe that. I don't want to believe that. But, I mean, I think computers would even find this, you know? It's hard to not believe that it's deliberate after the third round. I mean, my name was in a document dump of - it was only 20 documents that they released about three weeks ago, and my name was in that. So there's just absolutely no care. And so, I mean, I really hope it isn't intentionally to hurt survivors. I do think that that causes a great chilling effect for other survivors in the world, right? I mean, I think that we have this brief platform right now as Epstein and Maxwell survivors, but it's never really been about Epstein and Maxwell survivors. It's been about survivors as a whole. So I just - I don't - I really hope that this isn't just a scare tactic to keep people from coming forward.
DETROW: I wanted to ask. The lawsuit mentioned strangers calling and emailing some of the victims. Is that something you have experienced once your name went public?
BENSKY: Yes. Yes, I definitely think that that - there's an influx, always. After my name went public and files were released, I get a lot more in my inbox on both Facebook and, you know, all of the, like, the Meta world.
DETROW: Yeah.
BENSKY: And I do see more threats.
DETROW: We've got about a minute left. I'm curious what you make of the Google aspect of this, what you personally think the responsibility of a search engine like Google is to try and scale back this information that shouldn't have been made public to begin with.
BENSKY: Yeah. I think that the companies on the internet should not be publishing and republishing the material that should have been redacted. There is a responsibility there, and I just think that it was - you know, it wasn't really thought through. It wasn't great.
DETROW: Yeah. That's Danielle Bensky, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
BENSKY: Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me.
DETROW: And a note that NPR reached out to both the Department of Justice and Google for comment but did not hear back. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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