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A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice can proceed with the public release of case files from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Clears the Path for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the Justice Department asked the court in November to make public grand jury records and exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. 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 enactment of the Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day window. The new law mandates the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to permit the DOJ to release previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a similar request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s.

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

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that Congress intended this unsealing when it enacted the Transparency Act. The latest request 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:

• Search warrants
• Banking documents
• Survivor interview notes
• Data from digital devices
• Evidence from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was found dead in a prison cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is serving a two-decade sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is consulting victims and their attorneys and plans to redact records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of explicit imagery.

Prior Releases

A significant number of pages of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through various means, including civil cases, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now intends to disclose originates from photos, videos, and reports gathered by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That federal probe ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state charge. He completed 13 months in a work-release program.