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

Judicial Ruling Paves the Way for Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the Justice Department asked the court in November to unseal 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 court's ruling, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be released within a 10-day window. The new law requires the DOJ to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by December 19.

Growing Trend of Disclosure

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to release once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge granted a comparable petition to unseal records from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s.

A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case remains pending.

Breadth of Disclosure Greatly Expanded

The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this unsealing when it enacted the transparency act. The latest request vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the wide-ranging probe.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Banking documents
• Survivor interview notes
• Data from digital devices
• Evidence from prior probes in Florida

Context of the Cases

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges. He was found dead in a prison cell a month later, with his death ruled 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 consulting survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of explicit imagery.

Previous Disclosures

A significant number of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through various means, including civil cases, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

That federal probe concluded in 2008 with a confidential deal that enabled Epstein to evade federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He served over a year in a jail work-release program.