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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 Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ asked the court in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits 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 enactment of the Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day window. The legislation mandates the DOJ to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to permit the DOJ to publicly disclose previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge 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 is still under consideration.

Scope of Release Significantly Enlarged

The Justice Department has stated that Congress intended this unsealing 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 materials are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Financial records
• Notes from victim interviews
• Data from digital devices
• 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 found dead in a prison 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 two-decade sentence.

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

Previous Disclosures

Tens of thousands of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including civil cases, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now intends to disclose stems from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He completed 13 months in a work-release program.