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A U.S. judge has ruled that the Department of Justice 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 issued the ruling after the DOJ asked the court in November to unseal grand jury records and evidence from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This request could lead to the publication of a vast number of previously unreleased documents.

The court's ruling, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day window. The new law requires 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 permit the DOJ to release previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge approved a similar request 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 DOJ 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 investigative materials during the wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation.

These documents are reported to include items such as:

• Search warrants
• Banking documents
• Survivor interview notes
• Electronic device data
• Material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida

Case Background

Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, was arrested 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 found guilty of sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is serving a two-decade sentence.

The federal authorities has indicated it is consulting victims and their attorneys and will edit records to protect survivors' identities and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery.

Prior Releases

Tens of thousands of pages of records related to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including civil cases, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Much of the evidence the DOJ now intends to disclose originates from reports, photographs, videos gathered 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 concluded in 2008 with a confidential deal that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He completed over a year in a work-release program.