Jeffrey Epstein accuser said magician David Copperfield was aware young girls were being paid to recruit others

• David Copperfield is named in newly unsealed court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein's sex ring. 

• In a deposition, Johanna Sjoberg, a victim of Epstein, said she met the magician at Epstein's house.

• Copperfield asked if she "was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls," she said.

Celebrity magician David Copperfield was aware that some of the "girls" in Jeffrey Epstein's circle were paid to recruit others, Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg said in a 2016 deposition.

Copperfield is one of about 170 Epstein associates whose names appear in a batch of newly unsealed documents in the lawsuit between Virginia Roberts Giuffre, another Epstein accuser, and Ghislaine Maxwell.

As part of her deposition in the lawsuit, Sjoberg, who previously alleged that Prince Andrew fondled her at Epstein's mansion, said she met Copperfield at a dinner at the financier's house.

The magician seemed to be a friend of Epstein, Sjoberg said, and asked her if she "was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls."

Sjoberg said Sarah Kellen, who worked for Epstein and Maxwell, and another girl were also present.

"She seemed young to me," Sjoberg said about the other girl. "I thought she could be younger than college age, but I had to assume for my own sanity that she was a daughter of one of his friends."

Representatives of Copperfield did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Copperfield is one of the world's highest-paid magicians, earning $46 million in 2020, according to Forbes. He has a long-standing residency at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and owns 11 private islands in the Bahamas, which he rents out.

The deposition was conducted by Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Giuffre. In a statement Wednesday, McCawley said the unsealed documents shed light on "how Epstein operated his vast, global sex trafficking enterprise and got away with it for decades."

Maxwell, a former girlfriend and longtime associate of Epstein, was found guilty of trafficking girls and of sexual abuse in a 2021 criminal trial. She is serving a 20-year sentence.

The newly unsealed court documents are being released on a rolling basis, with more expected to be made public Thursday.

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