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A U.S. judge has ruled that the Department of Justice can proceed with 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 asked the court in November to make public grand jury records and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased 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 requires the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the DOJ to release previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a similar request to release transcripts from an earlier federal probe 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 the U.S. Congress intended this disclosure when it enacted the transparency act. The latest request dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered during the wide-ranging probe.

These materials are reported to include items such as:

• Court-issued warrants
• Financial records
• Survivor interview notes
• Data from digital devices
• Material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Context of the Cases

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was discovered deceased in a federal jail cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a two-decade sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity 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 various means, including lawsuits, official releases, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now intends to disclose originates from photos, videos, and reports gathered by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That federal probe ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by pleading guilty to a state charge. He completed over a year in a work-release program.