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A U.S. judge has determined that the Justice Department can proceed with 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 Document Disclosure

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

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

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge granted 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 criminal case is still under consideration.

Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged

The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress intended this disclosure when it passed the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the range 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
• Notes from victim interviews
• Electronic device data
• Material from prior probes in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was discovered deceased in a federal jail cell a month later, with his death ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is currently serving a two-decade sentence.

The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to safeguard victim anonymity and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery.

Previous Disclosures

A significant number of pages of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through various means, including civil cases, official releases, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the mid-2000s.

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