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A federal 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 longtime confidant 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 exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

The judge's decision, which follows the recent enactment of the Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day period. The new law mandates the DOJ to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by a specified date in December.

Judicial Pattern of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the DOJ to publicly disclose previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge approved a comparable petition to release transcripts from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the 2000s.

A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case remains pending.

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that the U.S. Congress intended this unsealing when it passed the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the scope 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
• Banking documents
• Notes from victim interviews
• Data from digital devices
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, was arrested 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 convicted 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 will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery.

Prior Releases

A significant number of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including civil cases, public disclosures, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the DOJ now plans to release originates from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That federal probe ended in 2008 with a confidential deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty to a state charge. He completed 13 months in a jail work-release program.