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A federal judge has determined that the Justice Department is authorized to carry out the disclosure of investigative materials from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Judicial Ruling Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department formally requested in November to make public grand jury transcripts and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the publication of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

The court's ruling, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day window. The legislation mandates the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by December 19.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to permit the Justice Department to release previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge granted a similar request to unseal records 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 Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this unsealing when it enacted the transparency act. The latest request dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation.

These materials are reported to include items such as:

• Court-issued warrants
• Financial records
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Context of the Cases

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on federal charges. He was discovered deceased in a prison 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 two-decade sentence.

The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to protect survivors' identities and stop the sharing of sensitive imagery.

Previous Disclosures

A significant number of pages of records related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the material the DOJ now intends to disclose stems from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in Palm Beach, 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 allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He served over a year in a jail work-release program.