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A federal judge has ruled 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 Clears the Path for Document Disclosure

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

The judge's decision, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day period. The new law mandates the Justice Department 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 permit the DOJ to publicly disclose once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge approved a similar request to unseal records from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s.

A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case is still under consideration.

Scope of Release Significantly Enlarged

The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this disclosure when it enacted the Transparency Act. The latest request vastly expanded the scope 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:

• Search warrants
• Financial records
• Notes from victim interviews
• Electronic device data
• Material 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 discovered deceased in a federal jail cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

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

Prior Releases

Tens of thousands of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through various means, including civil cases, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

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