What do court records show about the 2016 lawsuits accusing Trump and Epstein of rape?
Executive summary
Court records from 2016 show that an anonymous plaintiff—filing as “Katie Johnson” and later as “Jane Doe”—filed federal complaints alleging graphic sexual assaults, including rape, by Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein at Epstein’s New York residence in 1994 when the plaintiff says she was 13; those filings contain detailed, sworn allegations and supporting affidavits but were voluntarily dismissed and never adjudicated [1] [2] [3]. Independent reporting and fact checks emphasize that the filings are genuine court documents but originate from a case that was dropped in 2016 and therefore did not produce judicial findings of guilt or innocence [4] [5].
1. The filings: what the court papers actually allege
The complaint filed in federal court contains explicit, graphic allegations that the plaintiff was recruited to Epstein parties and was forced to have multiple sexual encounters with both defendants, alleging that Epstein raped her anally and vaginally and that Trump forcibly raped and assaulted her at separate encounters—claims laid out in the complaint and supporting declarations submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York [1] [2]. The filings include witness-affidavits identified in the complaint as corroborative —named pseudonymous witnesses such as “Tiffany Doe” and “Joan Doe” who purported to describe procurement and contemporaneous reports—material the complaint cites as corroboration of the plaintiff’s account [6] [1].
2. The procedural history: filed, refiled, then withdrawn
Public records and reporting show the original complaint was filed in 2016 in California under the pseudonym “Katie Johnson,” dismissed, and then refiled in New York as “Jane Doe” before the plaintiff filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice in late 2016, meaning the case was dropped and did not reach trial or a judicial determination on the merits [7] [5] [3]. News outlets and court-document repositories carrying the complaint note the withdrawal and that the lawsuit was not litigated to judgment [4] [3].
3. Authentication and limits of court records
Multiple outlets that reviewed the documents stress that the court papers themselves are authentic filings—actual complaints and declarations submitted to federal courts—but authenticity of a filing is not proof of the factual accuracy of its allegations; these civil claims remained unproven in court because the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed them [4] [2]. Fact-checking coverage warns that screenshots or excerpts of the complaint can be taken out of context; the original filings are from a dismissed 2016 case rather than a newly unsealed evidentiary release [4].
4. Corroboration, investigative threads, and other records
Beyond the lawsuit, an FBI intake document referenced in reporting records that a caller relayed secondhand accounts alleging a woman said she was raped by Epstein and Trump in the late 1990s; such intake records document tips to law enforcement but are explicitly not determinations of guilt and do not replace judicial findings [8]. Other released Epstein-related materials and prosecutors’ notes include tips and leads about many high-profile individuals, which federal officials have described as containing unverified or sensational claims amid broader, confirmed trafficking allegations against Epstein [9] [8].
5. Responses and contested narratives
Trump’s legal team publicly called the 2016 lawsuit a politically motivated hoax and branded the allegations “disgusting,” while publishers, courts and fact-checkers emphasize the legal reality that the complaint was withdrawn and never litigated—producing no judicial findings that would validate or refute the sworn accusations [6] [4]. Advocates for survivors and journalists point to the existence of sworn allegations as part of the record that merits scrutiny, while others caution that unadjudicated civil complaints can be used in political or media campaigns without the checks of a trial [6] [4].
6. Bottom line: what the court records do—and do not—show
The court records show that serious, detailed allegations were made in federal court in 2016 accusing Trump and Epstein of rape and sexual assault of a minor; they also show that the plaintiff withdrew her suits and that those allegations were never tested in court, meaning the filings are documentary evidence of accusations but not judicial findings of wrongdoing [1] [3] [4]. Reporting and official notes connected to Epstein’s files document a mix of corroborated trafficking convictions tied to Epstein and numerous tips and unverified claims; the 2016 Trump–Epstein complaint sits within that contested evidentiary and investigative landscape [8] [9].