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A U.S. judge has determined that the Justice Department can proceed with 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 Records Release

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the Justice Department formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the release of a vast number of previously unreleased documents.

The judge's decision, which comes in the wake of the recent enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day window. The legislation mandates the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by December 19.

Growing Trend of Unsealing

Engelmayer is the latest jurist to permit the Justice Department to publicly disclose previously secret records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge granted a similar request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s.

A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case remains pending.

Breadth of Disclosure Greatly Expanded

The DOJ has stated that the U.S. Congress aimed for this disclosure when it enacted the Transparency Act. The latest request dramatically enlarged the range 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
• Evidence from earlier Epstein investigations 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 20-year prison sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with victims and their attorneys and plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and prevent the dissemination of explicit imagery.

Previous Disclosures

Tens of thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through various means, including civil cases, public disclosures, and FOIA requests.

Much of the material the Justice Department now intends to disclose stems from photos, videos, and reports collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which looked into Epstein in the 2000s.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a confidential deal that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He completed 13 months in a jail work-release program.