🔗 Share this article Federal Judge Decides Justice Department Can Make Public Ghislaine Maxwell Case Materials A federal judge has ruled that the Justice Department is authorized to carry out the disclosure of investigative materials from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein. Court Order Paves the Way for Document Disclosure Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department asked the court in November to unseal grand jury records and exhibits from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents. The court's ruling, which comes in the wake of the recent enactment of the Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day window. The legislation mandates the Justice Department to provide Epstein-related records in a digitally searchable form by a specified date in December. Growing Trend of Unsealing Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to release previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida granted a comparable petition to release transcripts from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the 2000s. A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case is still under consideration. Scope of Release Greatly Expanded The Justice Department has stated that Congress intended this unsealing when it passed the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of investigative materials during the wide-ranging probe. These materials are reported to include items such as: Search warrants Banking documents Survivor interview notes Data from digital devices Evidence from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida Context of the Cases Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy 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 two-decade sentence. The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and stop the sharing of explicit imagery. Prior Releases A significant number of pages of records 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 originates from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which looked into Epstein in the 2000s. That investigation concluded in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by pleading guilty to a state charge. He served 13 months in a work-release program.