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A federal judge has determined that the Justice Department can proceed with the disclosure 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 DOJ formally requested in November to unseal grand jury records 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 enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be released within a 10-day window. The legislation requires the DOJ to provide Epstein-related records in a digitally searchable form by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to permit the DOJ to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a comparable petition to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the 2000s.

A further petition 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 intended this unsealing when it enacted the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the extensive probe.

These materials are reported to include items such as:

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

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on federal charges. He was discovered deceased in a prison cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of sex-trafficking 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 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, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now plans to release stems from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state charge. He served over a year in a work-release program.