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

Court Order Clears the Path for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department formally requested in November to unseal grand jury records and evidence from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the publication of a vast number of previously unreleased documents.

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

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the DOJ to publicly disclose previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a similar request to unseal records from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the 2000s.

A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case remains pending.

Breadth of Disclosure Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that Congress intended this disclosure when it passed the transparency act. The latest request vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the wide-ranging probe.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Financial records
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Evidence from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges. He was found dead in a federal jail cell a month later, with his death ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of related charges in December 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison 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.

Previous Disclosures

A significant number of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, official releases, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now plans to release originates from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in Palm Beach, 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 confidential deal that enabled Epstein to evade federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He served over a year in a work-release program.