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A U.S. 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 close associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Paves the Way for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department 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 publication of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed 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 mandates the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by December 19.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the DOJ to release once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a similar request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the 2000s.

A further petition 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 aimed for this disclosure when it passed the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered 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
• Electronic device data
• Evidence from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges. He was discovered deceased in a prison cell a month later, with his death ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a two-decade sentence.

The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to protect survivors' identities and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery.

Previous Disclosures

Tens of thousands of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, public disclosures, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the 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 charge. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program.