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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 183 Filed 03/26/21 Page 5 of 7

The Honorable Alison J. Nathan
March 22, 2021
Page 5 of 7

than impeachment, many of them are procurable from the Government and are thus improper subjects of a Rule 17(c) subpoena, as explained below.

Requests 2 through 5 also seek communications from 2015 through the present between BSF, its co-counsel, and the U.S. Attorney about Jean Luc Brunel, who is presently incarcerated in France on charges of sex crimes and is one of Jeffrey Epstein and the Defendant’s co-conspirators. But Brunel does not appear to be relevant to any of the Government’s charges in the indictment in this case, and, again, communications from 2015 are not relevant to conduct that occurred between 1994 and 1997. The Defendant thus seeks these communications, too, so that she can fish for impeachment materials.

Requests 6 and 7 seek contingency fee agreements or engagement letters between BSF and Annie Farmer and her sister, Maria Farmer. Such documents are irrelevant. The fact that the Farmers are represented, and the terms of their representation, is not relevant to whether the Defendant committed the crimes of which she is accused. Even the impeachment value of such documents is speculative. Maria Farmer is not one of the minor victims described in the indictment, and thus may not be called to testify in this case. And in seeking to determine whether BSF has contingency fee arrangements with the Farmers, the Defendant appears to seek to establish some motive of BSF to drum up contingency fees by convincing women to falsely accuse the Defendant of criminal conduct. But BSF’s motive for representing the Farmers would not be relevant to the Farmers’ motives for testifying for the prosecution (if they testify).

Request 9 seeks the original, complete copy of Annie Farmer’s journal from when she was a teenager for inspection and copying. But all potentially relevant pages were produced from this journal to the Defendant in civil discovery in another matter, as demonstrated by the Defendant’s ability to attach those pages as Exhibit A to the Subpoena. The remainder of the journal has nothing to do with the Defendant or Jeffrey Epstein. And the Defendant cannot inspect it for the purpose of fishing for something that could be potentially relevant—it is her burden to identify relevant and admissible evidence under Nixon. The Defendant also clearly seeks to use the journal for impeachment purposes, as she highlighted in a prior filing in a recently dismissed civil action Ms. Farmer filed against the Defendant. See Letter from L. Menninger to Hon. Debra C. Freeman at 2, Annie Farmer v. Darren K. Indyke, et al., 19-cv-10475 (LGS-DCF) (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 2020), ECF No. 108 (“[P]laintiff produced certain pages from a diary dated in early 1996 which detailed, only, that Jeffrey Epstein had held her hand in a movie theater in late 1995 which made her feel uncomfortable. This same diary contained exactly zero references to Ghislaine Maxwell, contrary to the assertions in her Complaint . . . .” (emphasis in original)).

Request 12 for “EVCP Material” is not relevant to the Defendant’s defense. BSF submitted claims and supporting evidence to the Epstein Victim’s Compensation Program on behalf of several Epstein survivors who have not made separate claims against Maxwell. The Defendant must demonstrate the relevance of all the evidence she seeks by means of a Rule 17(c) subpoena, not merely that she could turn up something that is relevant and admissible. See Pena, 2016 WL 8735699, at *2 (Nathan, J.) (“Pena has failed to make the requisite showing regarding the admissibility of ‘any and all’ other records regarding the cooperators that might exist at the MDC, MCC, or DOC.”); United States v. Aguilar, No. CR 07-00030 SBA, 2008 WL 3182029, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 4, 2008) (“Thus, while the Aguilars have sought some relevant evidence here,

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