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A U.S. 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.

Judicial Ruling Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department formally requested in November to make public grand jury records and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This action could lead to the publication of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

The court's ruling, which follows the recent enactment of the Transparency Act, means these materials could be released within a 10-day window. The new law requires the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a digitally searchable form by a specified date in December.

Judicial Pattern of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the Justice Department to publicly disclose once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a similar request to release transcripts from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the 2000s.

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

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that the U.S. Congress intended this disclosure when it passed the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered 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 earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Context of the Cases

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 ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

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

Previous Disclosures

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

Much of the evidence the Justice Department now intends to disclose originates from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which looked into Epstein in the 2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a confidential deal 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.