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A federal judge has determined that the Department of Justice can proceed with the disclosure of case files from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Judicial Ruling Clears the Path for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department asked the court in November to unseal grand jury records and exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed documents.

The court's ruling, which follows the recent enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day window. The new law mandates the DOJ to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by December 19.

Judicial Pattern of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to allow the Justice Department to release previously secret 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 separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case is still under consideration.

Breadth of Disclosure Greatly Expanded

The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this unsealing when it passed the transparency act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of investigative materials during the wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Financial records
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Material 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 convicted of sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

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

Previous Disclosures

A significant number of pages of records related 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 material the DOJ now intends to disclose originates from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in 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 allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He served 13 months in a work-release program.