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A U.S. judge has determined that the Justice Department is authorized to carry out the public release of investigative materials from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein.

Judicial Ruling Clears the Path for Document Disclosure

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the Justice Department asked the court in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and evidence from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This request 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 passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day period. The new law requires the DOJ to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by a specified date in December.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the DOJ to publicly disclose once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge approved a similar request 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 remains pending.

Breadth of Disclosure Greatly Expanded

The Justice Department has stated that Congress intended this unsealing when it enacted the Transparency Act. The latest request 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:

• Court-issued warrants
• Banking documents
• Notes from victim interviews
• Data from digital devices
• Material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was found dead in a prison cell a month later, with his death ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to protect survivors' identities and stop the sharing of sensitive imagery.

Previous Disclosures

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

Much of the evidence the Justice Department now intends to disclose originates from photos, videos, and reports gathered by police in Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s.

That federal probe ended in 2008 with a confidential deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state charge. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program.