A US federal judge has ruled that the justice department can publicly release investigative materials from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein. Judge Paul A Engelmayer's decision on Tuesday follows a request from the department in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of Maxwell and Epstein.
The ruling, made after the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month, means the records could be made public within 10 days. The law requires the justice department to provide Epstein-related records to the public in a searchable format by 19 December. Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the disclosure of previously secret Epstein court records; a Florida judge granted a similar request last week.
The justice department said Congress intended the unsealing when it passed the transparency act, which Donald Trump signed into law. The latest request dramatically enlarged the files to encompass 18 categories of investigative materials, including search warrants, financial records, survivor interview notes, and electronic device data. The government said it is conferring with survivors and plans to redact records to protect their identities and prevent the dissemination of sexualized images.
Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges and died in a federal jail cell a month later, with his death ruled a suicide. Maxwell, a British socialite, was convicted of sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. She was moved from a Florida prison to a Texas prison camp over the summer as her case generated renewed public attention.
