🔗 Share this article Judge Decides DOJ Can Make Public Ghislaine Maxwell Case Materials A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice can proceed with the disclosure of case files from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Judicial Ruling Clears the Path for Document Disclosure Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the Justice Department formally requested in November to make public 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 court's ruling, which follows the recent enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day period. The legislation requires the DOJ 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 allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a comparable petition to unseal records from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the early 2000s. A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case is still under consideration. Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged The Justice Department has stated that Congress intended this disclosure when it passed the Transparency Act. The latest request vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered during the wide-ranging probe. These materials are reported to include items such as: Search warrants Banking documents Notes from victim interviews Electronic device data Material from prior probes in Florida Context of the Cases Jeffrey Epstein, a 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 officially deemed 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 consulting survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of explicit imagery. Prior Releases A significant number of pages of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through various means, including lawsuits, official releases, and Freedom of Information Act requests. Much of the material the Justice Department now plans to release stems from reports, photographs, videos gathered by police in Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the 2000s. That federal probe concluded in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge. He completed 13 months in a work-release program.