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A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice is authorized to carry out the disclosure of case files from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Court Order Paves the Way for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the publication of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed documents.

The judge's decision, which comes in the wake of the recent passage of the Transparency Act, means these materials could be released within a 10-day period. The new law mandates the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by a specified date in December.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the Justice Department to release previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a comparable petition to release transcripts from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the early 2000s.

A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case is still under consideration.

Scope of Release Significantly Enlarged

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

These materials are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Banking documents
• Notes from victim interviews
• Data from digital devices
• Material from prior probes in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, was taken into custody 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 sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with victims and their attorneys and plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and prevent the dissemination of explicit imagery.

Previous Disclosures

Tens of thousands of pages of records related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, official releases, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a confidential deal that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He completed 13 months in a jail work-release program.