A case between two of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers is being held up by X fighting a crucial subpoena.
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Elon Musk's X Corp. is gumming up a case between two Jeffrey Epstein accusers by spending months stonewalling subpoenas.
Rina Oh Amen, one of the Epstein accusers in the case, has asked X Corp. — the corporate entity that succeeded Twitter following Elon Musk's purchase of the company — to supply records from her own accounts on the social media platform, which she can no longer access.
But X Corp. has refused. Lawyers representing the company countered with baffling, lengthy legalese-filled responses saying they wouldn't provide any records.
"X Corp. will not be producing any data in response to your subpoena," reads one letter sent by an X lawyer earlier this year.
X's objections come in a messy case between Virginia Giuffre and Rina Oh Amen, two women who say they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein created what prosecutors later called "a pyramid scheme of abuse" to sexually abuse girls. He and Ghislaine Maxwell — who was later convicted of trafficking girls to Epstein for sex and sexually abusing some of them herself — manipulated girls so that they'd bring friends to Epstein to rape, prosecutors said at Maxwell's trial. (Epstein himself died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.)
Maxwell recruited Giuffre at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in 2000, bringing her to Epstein. Giuffre has blamed Oh Amen for participating in the abuse by sexually and physically abusing her in the early 2000s. In 2021, Oh Amen sued Giuffre, alleging Giuffre defamed her with those claims. Giuffre countersued, alleging Oh Amen was Epstein's "girlfriend." In court filings and public statements, each has accused the other of acting as one of Epstein's recruiters rather than a true victim.
In court filings over the past nine months, lawyers for both Giuffre and Oh Amen have steadily updated the judge overseeing the case, in Manhattan federal court, saying they were "amicably" conducting discovery by exchanging documentation and subpoenaing third parties to obtain the evidence they needed.
The one exception was X, the social media company.
Giuffre wanted to obtain records from Oh Amen's accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, where the two had publicly fought.
Lawyers for Oh Amen agreed to provide them, but Oh Amen had been suspended from one of her accounts and couldn't download data from the second account.
Oh Amen's attorney sent a subpoena to X Corp., believing the company would be less likely to have any privacy objections than if the opposing party had sent one. After all, Oh Amen is just asking for the content from her own account.
"The accounts belonged to the party that sent the subpoena," Alexander Dudelson, a lawyer representing Oh Amen in the case, told Business Insider. "It's not like we're looking for some third party's information."
But X refused. In a January 22 letter, a lawyer for the company wrote, among other arguments, that Oh Amen had access to the X records and they could ask her — even though the whole point of the subpoena was that Oh Amen couldn't access her data from her account.
Dudelson and lawyers for Giuffre hired a digital forensic expert to try to help Oh Amen access her own account information on X. When that didn't succeed, the forensic expert helped craft a second, more specific subpoena that they said would be easier for the company to fulfill. He also wrote out an affidavit explaining that Oh Amen couldn't access and download records from her own accounts.
X refused to comply with the second subpoena as well, fighting it with a slew of new objections. In a letter dated June 25, a lawyer for X Corp. wrote that the subpoena should be directed to Oh Amen — who sent the subpoena in the first place.
"That's the most ridiculous objection," Dudelson told Business Insider. "Because we're furnishing them with an affidavit from a forensic that states that we cannot access these accounts."
AP/Rina Oh
Kathleen R. Thomas, an attorney representing Giuffre in the case, told Business Insider she's baffled by how X has fought the subpoenas.
"It doesn't make sense," Thomas said. "Why wouldn't you be able to get your own information in this situation? The plaintiff is doing the right thing."
Dudelson said the records from X are the last piece of outstanding discovery evidence needed in the case before the parties can move forward with it.
"If they complied, ultimately, I could set a trial date and get this matter resolved," he said. "This is actually preventing us from pushing forward right now."
In a court filing Wednesday, Thomas asked the judge in the case to hold a conference where they could discuss filing motions to compel X to comply with the subpoena — which would take more time.
Thomas told Business Insider it's crucial to see Oh Amen's X records to contextualize all of the defamation claims.
"If we only have one side of the dispute, that's not fair to the defendant," she said. "How's the defendant supposed to defend themselves in a court of law if we can't get access to all communications?"
Business Insider's requests for comment to X were returned with an automated email saying the company was "busy."
"I don't know why they were being so obstructionist about this subpoena," Thomas said. "It's baffling to me."
