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A U.S. judge has determined that the Justice Department is authorized to carry out the public release of case files from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department asked the court in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This action could lead to the publication of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

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

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the Justice Department to release previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge approved 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 criminal case remains pending.

Scope of Release Significantly Enlarged

The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this unsealing when it passed the transparency act. The latest request vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the extensive sex-trafficking investigation.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Court-issued warrants
• Financial records
• Notes from victim interviews
• Data from digital devices
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Case Background

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

The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of explicit imagery.

Prior Releases

Tens of thousands of pages of records related to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including lawsuits, public disclosures, and FOIA requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now intends to disclose stems from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That investigation concluded in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He completed over a year in a work-release program.