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A U.S. judge has ruled that the Department of Justice 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 Paves the Way for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ formally requested in November to unseal grand jury records and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This action could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed documents.

The judge's decision, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day period. The legislation mandates the DOJ to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge approved a similar request to unseal records from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the 2000s.

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

Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged

The Justice Department has stated that Congress aimed for this unsealing when it enacted the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of evidence gathered during the extensive sex-trafficking investigation.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Court-issued warrants
• Banking documents
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a 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 found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a two-decade sentence.

The government has indicated it is conferring with survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and stop the sharing of explicit imagery.

Prior Releases

A significant number of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including civil cases, official releases, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the DOJ now plans to release originates from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in 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 confidential deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge. He served 13 months in a work-release program.