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

Court Order Clears the Path for Records Release

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 hitherto sealed documents.

The court's ruling, which follows the recent enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day window. The new law requires the DOJ to provide Epstein-related records in a digitally searchable form by a specified date in December.

Judicial Pattern of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to release 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 2000s.

A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case remains pending.

Scope of Release Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that Congress intended this disclosure when it enacted the Transparency Act. The latest request vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered during the extensive sex-trafficking investigation.

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

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on federal charges. He was found dead in a prison 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 conferring with survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to safeguard victim anonymity and stop the sharing of sensitive imagery.

Previous Disclosures

A significant number of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including lawsuits, official releases, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the material the DOJ now intends to disclose originates from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the 2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge. He completed over a year in a jail work-release program.