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

Court Order Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ formally requested in November to make public grand jury records 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 judge's decision, which follows the recent enactment of the Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day window. The legislation 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 DOJ to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge granted a comparable petition to unseal records from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the early 2000s.

A separate request 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 intended this unsealing when it enacted the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation.

These documents 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 federal charges. He was found dead in a prison cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty 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 safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of explicit imagery.

Prior Releases

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

Much of the material the DOJ now intends to disclose originates 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 mid-2000s.

That investigation 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 served 13 months in a jail work-release program.