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A federal judge has determined 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 Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ formally requested in November to make public grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the publication of a vast number of hitherto sealed documents.

The judge's decision, which follows the recent enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day window. The legislation requires the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by December 19.

Judicial Pattern of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the DOJ to release previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a comparable petition to unseal records from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s.

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

Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged

The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress intended this unsealing when it passed the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the scope 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:

• Search warrants
• Banking documents
• Notes from victim interviews
• Electronic device data
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on sex trafficking 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 currently 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 explicit imagery.

Previous Disclosures

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 Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the Justice Department now intends to disclose originates from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s.

That investigation concluded in 2008 with a confidential deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state charge. He served 13 months in a work-release program.