The U.S. Justice Department’s release of more than 3 million pages related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking case have garnered a lot of attention.
A search engine allows easy access to documents containing whatever names, places or terms one types in.
But often, context is lost.
Even BreakingAC is listed four times as part of news briefing emails the FBI sends each morning. The stories reference have no connection to Epstein.
The criminal case of former Atlantic City Mayor Frank Gilliam also makes the news briefing emails, with mentions of Mayor Marty Small replacing him.
That also is how Dulce Maria Alavez’s name wound up in the mix.
A search turns up six mentions of the Bridgeton girl who was 5 years old when she went missing from Bridgeton City Park on Sept. 16, 2019.
There is no indication that her disappearance has any connection to the infamous Epstein sex-trafficking case.
Instead, they all are emails containing links or snippets from news articles about the search for the little girl who now would be 11 years old.
Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae said she was made aware of a report about the Epstein documents and Dulce, and forwarded it to investigators.
There have been several rumors over the years that Webb-McRae has had to address and correct because of the attention and panic they sparked.
One of those times even is mentioned in a news brief email among the Epstein document release.
Webb-McRae was responding to a Facebook post that pretended to be from her office and saying there would be a news conference about the case.
She called the post at the time “reprehensible.”
“Information like this is a distraction to the investigation and causes unnecessary grief to the family of missing child Dulce Maria Alavez,” Webb-McRae wrote. “Posting false information under the false impression that it is comes from a law enforcement agency to cause alarm or harm to a grieving family is reprehensible.”