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A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice can proceed with the public release of case files from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Judicial Ruling Clears the Path for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ asked the court in November to make public grand jury records and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed documents.

The judge's decision, which comes in the wake of the recent passage of the Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day window. The new law requires the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by a specified date in December.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to allow the DOJ to release previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a comparable petition to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s.

A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case is still under consideration.

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that Congress aimed for this unsealing when it enacted the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered during the extensive sex-trafficking investigation.

These materials are reported to include items such as:

• Court-issued warrants
• Banking documents
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was found dead in a prison cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The government has indicated it is consulting victims and their attorneys and will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of explicit imagery.

Prior Releases

A significant number of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, official releases, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the DOJ now plans to release originates from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program.