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A U.S. judge has determined that the Justice Department can proceed with the public release of investigative materials from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Clears the Path for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ asked the court in November to make public grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This request could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

The court's ruling, which comes in the wake of the recent enactment of the Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day period. The new law requires the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a digitally searchable form by a specified date in December.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a comparable petition 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.

Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged

The DOJ has stated that Congress aimed for this disclosure when it passed 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 documents are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Banking documents
• Survivor interview notes
• 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 sex trafficking charges. He was found dead 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 currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with victims and their attorneys and will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity and prevent the dissemination of explicit imagery.

Prior Releases

Tens of thousands of pages of records related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, official releases, and FOIA requests.

Much of the evidence the Justice Department now plans to release stems from photos, videos, and reports gathered by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s.

That federal probe ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He completed over a year in a jail work-release program.