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

Judicial Ruling Clears the Path 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 Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

The court's ruling, which comes in the wake of the recent passage of the Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day period. The legislation mandates the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by December 19.

Judicial Pattern of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a comparable petition to release transcripts 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 Greatly Expanded

The Justice Department has stated that Congress aimed for this unsealing when it passed the Transparency Act. The latest request dramatically enlarged the scope 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
• Financial records
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Material 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 federal jail 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 two-decade sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery.

Prior Releases

Tens of thousands of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including civil cases, official releases, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems 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 2000s.

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