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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 longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the release of a vast number of hitherto sealed documents.

The judge's decision, which comes in the wake of the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day period. The legislation requires the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by a specified date in December.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge 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 remains pending.

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this disclosure when it enacted 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 probe.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Court-issued warrants
• Financial records
• Notes from victim interviews
• Data from digital devices
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Context of the Cases

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was found dead 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 20-year prison sentence.

The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of sensitive imagery.

Prior Releases

Tens of thousands of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through various means, including civil cases, public disclosures, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose originates from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-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 charge. He served over a year in a jail work-release program.