Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell emails? Everything you need to know
The 2015 defamation suit Virginia Giuffre filed against Ghislaine Maxwell produced the first wave of unsealed emails between Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. Those messages, sent while Maxwell publicly claimed she had cut ties with Epstein, showed the pair still trading strategy and cover stories.
Giuffre alleged that Maxwell and Epstein had kept her as a sex slave. Maxwell fought the document release, but the court ruled public interest outweighed her objections. The same files also surfaced a recommended statement Epstein drafted for Maxwell to use when asked about her relationship with him.
Emails
The 2015 exchanges remain part of a far larger record. Later Department of Justice releases under the Epstein Files Transparency Act added millions of pages of correspondence, including further Epstein-Maxwell messages from earlier and later years. The original 2015 thread, however, still stands as the clearest snapshot of how the pair coordinated responses during the Giuffre litigation.
Act like you’re innocent
On January 24, 2015, Maxwell wrote Epstein suggesting that a woman named Shelley publicly claim she had been Epstein’s girlfriend from late 1999 to 2002. Epstein replied the next morning: “ok, with me, You have done nothing wrong and i would urge you to start acting like it. go outside, head high, not as an escaping convict. go to parties. deal with it.” Subsequent reporting identified the Shelley referenced in the note as Manchester-born wellness entrepreneur Shelley Lewis, who had been described in earlier accounts as Epstein’s girlfriend during those years.
Providing a statement
Three days earlier, on January 21, Epstein sent Maxwell a multi-page draft statement meant to distance her from him. It opened: “Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harassment.” The text continued that Maxwell had “never been a party in any criminal action pertaining to JE” and claimed she had been in a long-term relationship with another man at the time of Epstein’s 2008 plea. Later email caches released in 2025 confirmed the same pattern of coordination extended well beyond this single document.
Maxwell's Conviction and Appeals
Maxwell’s own criminal case reached a conclusion years after these emails surfaced. She was convicted in December 2021 on sex-trafficking charges and sentenced to twenty years. The Second Circuit affirmed the verdict in 2024. The Supreme Court denied certiorari in October 2025, and a habeas petition was rejected in January 2026, leaving the conviction final.
Major Epstein Files Releases (2024-2026)
The document releases that followed the 2015 lawsuit far exceeded the handful of files originally anticipated. Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice published more than three million pages in January 2026, along with earlier batches in 2024 and 2025. Those tranches included the Palm Beach police reports and Epstein flight manifests that the 2015 litigation had flagged as still under seal.
Identity of Shelley
At the time the 2015 emails were first published, reporters could not confirm who Shelley was. Public records and contemporaneous interviews later established that the reference pointed to Shelley Lewis, a British wellness entrepreneur who had been linked to Epstein around 1999-2002. Lewis has not commented publicly on the email exchange.
Additional Epstein-Maxwell Email Caches
Bloomberg obtained more than eighteen thousand additional Epstein emails covering 2002-2022, with the heaviest volume between 2005 and 2008. Separate House Oversight Committee releases in 2025 included 2011 messages between the pair. Both sets show the same operational overlap that appeared in the 2015 thread, indicating the partnership continued long after Maxwell’s public statements suggested otherwise.
More to come
The 2015 lawsuit documents were only the beginning. Subsequent releases have delivered the flight logs, Palm Beach investigative files, and additional correspondence that the original reporting flagged as likely to surface. The full picture of Epstein and Maxwell’s relationship now rests on a public record measured in millions of pages rather than dozens.
