Virginia Roberts Responds To Maxwell's Summary Judgement Request (Part 5)
Virginia Giuffre’s response to Ghislaine Maxwell’s motion for summary judgment was a direct challenge to Maxwell’s attempt to dismiss the case without a trial. In her filing, Giuffre argued that Maxwell’s statements denying any wrongdoing were not only defamatory, but made with actual malice—because Maxwell knew they were false when she made them. Giuffre’s legal team submitted sworn testimony, supporting documentation, and detailed timelines to establish that Maxwell had played a central role in Epstein’s trafficking operation and that her denials were part of a broader effort to discredit and silence victims.
Virginia Giuffre’s response to Ghislaine Maxwell’s motion for summary judgment was a direct challenge to Maxwell’s attempt to dismiss the case without a trial. In her filing, Giuffre argued that Maxwell’s statements denying any wrongdoing were not only defamatory, but made with actual malice—because Maxwell knew they were false when she made them. Giuffre’s legal team submitted sworn testimony, supporting documentation, and detailed timelines to establish that Maxwell had played a central role in Epstein’s trafficking operation and that her denials were part of a broader effort to discredit and silence victims.
to contact me:
bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
source:
Giuffre-unseal.pdf (courthousenews.com)
Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
In this episode, we're going to pick up where we
left off with Virginia Roberts' response to the Ghislaine Maxwell
attempt to get a summary judgment in their defamation case.
So let's get right back to it. Number two, defendant
is liable for the media's publication of the defamatory statement.
After arguing contrary to the New York law, that she
is not liable for the media's publication of her own
press release, defendant next argues that she is not liable
for the media's publications of the defamatory statement contained within
her press release if the media chose to make even
the tiniest of editorial changes. If we understand defendant's argument correctly,
any omission of any language from a press release is
somehow a selective, partial publication for which she escapes liability.
Motion at 14. Once again, this claim is absurd on
its face. It would mean that a defamer could send
to the media a long attack on a victim with
one irrelevant sentence, and when the media quite predictably cut
that sentence, well, they escape liability for the attack. Moreover,
even on its face, the claim presents a jury question
of what changes would be in context viewed as selective
or partial publications. something that only a jury could determine
after hearing all of the evidence. In support of this
meritless argument, defendants cite Rand v. New York Times Company
for the proposition that a defendant cannot be liable for
a publisher's editing and excerpting of a statement. 430 NYS. 2D
271 274 75 A.D.2D 417 422 N.Y.A.D 1980 This argument
fails for several reasons. First, there is no republication by
the media as a matter of law. Defendant issued a
defamatory statement to the press and its publication, as defendant intended,
is not a republication under the law as discussed above. Second,
there was no editing or paraphrasing or taking the quote
out of context of the core defamatory statement in the
press release. that Ms. Roberts is a liar. The obvious
lies passage is the heart of the message defendants sent
to the press, that Ms. Roberts was lying about her
past sexual abuse. Even in isolation, defendants quote, stating that Ms.
Roberts' claims are obvious lies, does not distort or misrepresent
the message defendant intended to convey to the public that Ms.
Roberts was lying about her claims. As this court explained
in denying defendants motion to dismiss this case, involve statements
that explicitly claim the sexual assault allegations are false. Roberts v. Maxwell, 165, F.SUPP.3D, 147, 152, SDNY, 2016. Furthermore,
the facts at issue here make the Rand holding in opposite.
In Rand, the newspaper paraphrased and sanitized defendants' words. No
such changing, sanitizing, or paraphrasing occurred in the instant case.
the media quoted defendant's statement accurately. Further, the phrase at
issue in Rand was that certain people screwed another person.
The speaker, newspaper, used the term screwed in reference to
a record label's dealings with a performing artist, and did
not mean screwed in the literal sense, but as rhetorical hyperbole,
and as such is not to be taken literally. By contrast,
there is no hyperbole in defendant's defamatory statement and it
was never distorted or paraphrased by any publication known to Ms. Roberts.
A jury could reasonably conclude that defendant's statement that Ms.
Roberts' claims of child sex abuse or obvious lies is
not a rhetorical device nor hyperbole, but a literal and
particular affirmation that Ms. Roberts lied. Accordingly, there is no
support in the factual record that the media reporting what
defendants stated that Ms. Roberts' claims of childhood sexual abuse
are obvious lies is a distortion of the defendant's message
or hyperbole. Even a cursory review of the press release
would lead to that conclusion. Moreover, to the extent that
there is any dispute that defendant's statement had a different
meaning outside of the context of the remainder of the
press release, such a determination of meaning and interpretation would
is a question of fact for the jury to decide
and is inappropriate for determination upon summary judgment. B. Material
issues of fact preclude summary judgment. 1. The Barton Declaration
presents disputed issues of fact. The primary basis of defendant's
motion for summary judgment is her attorney's self-serving post hoc
affidavit wherein he sets forth his alleged intent with regard
defendant's defamatory statement. Ms. Roberts disputes defendant's attorney's alleged and
unproven intent, not to mention defendant's intent, not only because
defendant refuses to turn over her attorney's communications, but also
because questions of intent are questions of fact to be
determined by a trier of fact. Furthermore, ample record evidence
contradicts the claimed intent. A. The Barden Declaration is a
deceptive backdoor attempt to inject Barden's advice without providing discovery.
of all attorney communications. In her brief, defendant discloses her
attorney's alleged legal strategy and alleged legal advice. However, she
deliberately states that her attorney's intended instead of her attorney
advised when discussing her attorney's legal strategy and advice, using
that phrase at least 37 times and using phrases such
as Barton's beliefs, purposes, goals, and contemplations 25 other times.
All the while, defendant is claimed privileged As to her
communications with Barden, defendant attempts to convince the court that
she only granted gal permission to publish the defamatory statements
as part of Mr. Barden's deliberated and carefully crafted MSJ
at 16 legal strategy and advice. Yet, she still refused
to turn over her communications with Barden under the auspices
of attorney-client privilege. Such gamesmanship should not be permitted. If
the court were to consider the Barden Declaration, which it shouldn't,
it would be on a ruling on less than complete
record because, based on this declaration, it is necessary that
defendant disclose all communications with him and possibly others. Ms.
Roberts doesn't have those communications. The court doesn't have those communications. Therefore,
defendant is asking for summary judgment on an incomplete record.
The court should also not consider the Barden Declaration because
it will be inadmissible as unduly prejudicial. It is a
self-serving declaration by a non-deposed witness made without turning over
the documents that are relevant to the declaration. CEG Rubens v.
Mason 387 F. 3d 183 185 2nd Circuit 2004. We find
that the district court predicated its grant of summary judgment
as to liability on an affidavit from the arbitrator who
presided over the underlying arbitration the probative value of which
was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. The affidavit, therefore,
should not have been admitted. We therefore vacate the grant
of summary judgment to the defendant on liability and remand
to the district court. B. Defendant's summary judgment arguments require
factual findings regarding Barton's intent, thereby precluding summary judgment. Even
were the court to consider this declaration and representations therein,
which it should not, The declaration itself demonstrates that the
court would have to make factual findings as to what Mr.
Barton's intent really was. Finding about intent are appropriate at
the summary judgment stage, as this court and the Second
Circuit Court have recognized. This court has explained, if it
is necessary to resolve inferences regarding intent, summary judgment is
not appropriate. Suite J, citing Patrick v. Le Fay, states, C.
There are factual disputes regarding Barden's declaration. Finally, there are
material disputes over the statements in the Barden Declaration because
they are directly refuted by record evidence. For example, the
instant motion... and the Barden Declaration described the press release
merely as a document expressing his, Mr. Barden's, opinion in
the form of a legal argument, as a lawyer would be,
as opposed to a press release for dissemination by the
media to the public. Record evidence refutes this claim as 1.
the press release was sent to journalists, 2. media publishers,
or in-house counsel, 2. the press release instructed the journalists
to publish the defamatory statement, Please find attached a quotable
statement on behalf of Ms. Maxwell. Three, it was issued
by a publicist on defendant's behalf and not an attorney
without any reference to attorneys or laws. Indeed, Gao testified
that Barton was unavailable to approve the statement. And four,
Gao testified that he issued the statement only after he
understood defendant to have signed off on it in understanding
he formed based on defendant's positive command to him. This
is the agreed statement. Question. When you sent that email,
were you acting pursuant to Ms. Maxwell's retention of your services? Answer. Yes,
I was. Question. When you say agreed statement, can you
tell me more about what you mean? Who agreed to
the statement? Answer. I need to give you some context,
if I may, about that statement. So this is on
New Year's Day. I was in France, so the email
time here is 2146. In French time, and 2246. And
I was getting up early the next morning to drive
my family back to the south of France, to England,
which is a 14-hour journey door to door. So on
the morning of the 2nd of January, bearing in mind
that Ms. Maxwell, I think was in New York then,
she was five hours behind, so there was quite a
lot of sort of time difference between the various countries here,
I sent her an email, I believe saying, parsing this,
forwarding this email to her saying, how do you wish
to proceed? and I was on the telephone. I had
two telephones in the car. I received in excess 30
phone calls from various media outlets on the 2nd of January,
all asking for information about how Ms. Maxwell was looking
to respond to the latest court filings, which were filed
on the 30th of December, as I understand. And by
close towards close of play on the 2nd, I received
an email forwarded by Ms. Maxwell containing a draft statement,
which my understanding was the majority of which had been
drafted by Mr. Barton with a header along the lines
of this is the agreed-on statement, at close of play
on the 2nd. So I was, I had gone under
the channel tunnel, and I was sitting on the other side,
and that email, which my understanding was that it had
been signed off on by the client effectively, was then
sent out to a number of media, including Mr. Ball
and various other UK newspapers. Question, Mr. Gow, when you
say end of play and close of play, are you
referring to sending the email that is Exhibit 2? Answer,
yes I am. Question, the subject line does have FW,
which to me indicates it's a forward. Do you know
where the rest of the email chain is? Answer, my
understanding of this is, it was a holiday in the UK,
but Mr. Barden was not necessarily accessible at some point
in time, so this had been sent to him originally
by Ms. Maxwell, and because he was unavailable, she forwarded
it to me for immediate action. I, therefore, responded, Okay, Ghislaine,
I'll go with this. It is my understanding that this
is the agreed statement because the subject of the second
one is urgent. This is the statement. So I take
that as an instruction to send it out as a
positive command. This is the statement. Accordingly, record evidence shows
that the press release was intended as press release and
not as a legal argument. Record evidence also establishes that
defendants circulated the press release to Barton and Gow and
then gave a positive command to Gow to publish it. Additionally,
there is no indica that the press release is a
legal opinion. To the contrary, it was issued by and
specifically attributed to a woman who has personal knowledge of
whether Ms. Roberts' claims of sexual abuse are true and
she states that Ms. Roberts is a liar. At the
very least, all of these factual issues must be considered
by a jury. Another example is that defendant states that
Gow served only as Mr. Barden's conduit to the media,
and Mr. Barden was directing the January 2nd through 15th
statement to a discrete number of media representatives. Barden wasn't
directing anything. He wasn't even in the loop when defendant
decided to publish the statement, and the documents prove it. Indeed,
the press release itself states that it is on behalf
of Ms. Maxwell, not Barden, it was the defendant who
gave the positive command to Gow to publish it. These
are just a couple of examples among many of the
purported facts asserted in defendant's motion and Barden's declaration that
are directly refuted by facts in the record. Finally, neither
the media nor the general public could have known that
the statement should be attributed to Barden. His name was
nowhere in it, nor is there any reference to counsel.
Defendant's argument that the context is the media knowing Barden's
intent or involvement is unsupported by the record. The significant
factual disputes about Barden alone prevent summary judgment. Alright folks,
we're going to wrap up right there, and then in
the next episode we'll pick up where we left off.
All of the information that goes with this episode can
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