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A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice is authorized to carry out the disclosure of case files from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the Justice Department formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts 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 judge's decision, which comes in the wake of the recent passage of the Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day window. The new law requires the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the DOJ to release once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge approved a similar request to release transcripts from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the early 2000s.

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

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The Justice Department has stated that Congress aimed for this unsealing when it enacted the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include 18 categories of investigative materials during the wide-ranging probe.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Financial records
• Survivor interview notes
• Data from digital devices
• Material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Context of the Cases

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy 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 officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of related charges in December 2021 and is currently serving a two-decade sentence.

The government has indicated it is consulting victims and their attorneys and plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and stop the sharing of sensitive imagery.

Prior Releases

A significant number of pages of records 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 material the Justice Department now plans to release 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 mid-2000s.

That federal probe concluded in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He completed 13 months in a jail work-release program.