1 of 3 | Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York on Tuesday announces the proposed “Virginia’s Law” during a press conference at the Capitol in Washington. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and former victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking on Tuesday announced the proposed Virginia’s Law to punish similar offenders.
Schumer, D-N.Y., told media the proposed law would eliminate the federal statute of limitations on federal civil suits and make it easier for victims of sex crimes to hold their abusers accountable in federal courts.
The law is named after Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025 and earlier accused Britain’s ex-Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her while she was a teen.
Giuffre’s sister-in-law Amanda Roberts attended the announcement and supports ending the statute of limitations in such cases.
“No more laws that treat survivors as though time can erase harm,” Roberts said, as quoted by the BBC. “Pass Virginia’s law,” she added.
The announcement of the proposed law came a day after the Justice Department provided members of Congress with unredacted copies of the Epstein files that have been made publicly available free of charge in their redacted form via the DOJ’s online Epstein Library.
The redactions protect victims, block the faces of women in photos and prevent access to any related child sex abuse materials.
Reps. Ro Khana, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., co-sponsored the legislation that created the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Khana on Tuesday read the names of six men that he and Massie said the files release “likely incriminated” and should have been charged with crimes.
Khana and Massie reviewed some of the unredacted files on Monday for about two hours and suggested many more likely are in the files.
“My question is, why did it take Thomas Massie and me going through the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?” Khana said.
“If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up in those 3 million files.”
He accused the FBI of sending “scrubbed” files to the Justice Department for uploading for public availability.
News outlets did not report the names of the six men whom Khana and Massie said should have been held criminally liable.
Among others mentioned in the files is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who on Tuesday acknowledged visiting Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, in the Caribbean Sea in 2012, The Washington Post reported
Lutnick told members of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on broadband funding that he and his family traveled to the island for a brief visit and said he had no meaningful relationship with Epstein.
He said he had lunch there with his family and the now-deceased financier and convicted sex offender, and it was one of three times that he met with Epstein over 14 years.
“I didn’t look through the documents with any fear whatsoever because I know and my wife knows that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard,” Lutnick told the subcommittee.
Lutnick formerly chaired the Cantor Fitzgerald financial services firm and said he and his wife intentionally put more distance between themselves and Epstein in 2005.
Three years later, Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida charges that accused him of soliciting a prostitute and child prostitution.
The guilty plea made him a convicted sex offender, and he was sentenced to 13 months in jail and supervised release. Epstein also had to register as a convicted sex offender.
He died when he hung himself while jailed in New York City and awaiting trial on federal charges accusing him of child sex trafficking and related offenses in 2019.
The unredacted files include the names of alleged Epstein co-conspirators Les Wexner, Epstein assistant Lesley Groff and ex-modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel of France, according to CNN.
Wexner is a billionaire and the former chief executive officer of L. Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret. He claims to have ended contact with Epstein in 2007.
An attorney representing Wexner in December said the federal prosecutor in charge of the Epstein case said Wexner was not a co-conspirator of Epstein’s and was not among those targeted by prosecutors.
Groff likewise said she had nothing to do with the Epstein case or any illegal activities and never was told that prosecutors allegedly might have viewed her as a co-conspirator.
Brunel was arrested on related charges in 2022, including one accusing him of sexually assaulting a minor, but he was found dead inside his prison cell that same year.
A medical examiner ruled his death as suicide by hanging.
