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A federal judge has ruled that the Department of Justice is authorized to carry out the public release of case files from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Clears the Path for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ asked the court in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and evidence 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 comes in the wake of the recent passage of the Transparency Act, means these materials could be released within a 10-day window. The legislation requires the DOJ to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by a specified date in December.

Judicial Pattern of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to release once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a similar request to unseal records from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the 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 the U.S. Congress intended this unsealing when it enacted the transparency act. The latest request vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include 18 categories of investigative materials during the wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

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

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges. He was found dead in a prison 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 federal authorities 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.

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 evidence the DOJ now plans to release stems from photos, videos, and reports gathered by police in Palm Beach, 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 charges by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He completed over a year in a work-release program.