🔗 Share this article Federal Judge Rules Justice Department May Make Public Ghislaine Maxwell Case Documents A federal judge has ruled that the Justice Department can proceed with the disclosure of case files from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Judicial Ruling Paves the Way for Document Disclosure Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and evidence from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents. The judge's decision, which follows the recent passage of the Transparency Act, means these records could be released within a 10-day period. The legislation requires the DOJ to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a digitally searchable form by a specified date in December. Growing Trend of Disclosure Engelmayer is the latest jurist to allow the Justice Department to release once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge 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 DOJ has stated that Congress intended this unsealing when it enacted the Transparency Act. The latest request dramatically enlarged the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the wide-ranging sex-trafficking investigation. These documents are reported to include items such as: Search warrants Banking documents Notes from victim interviews Electronic device data Evidence from prior probes in Florida Context of the Cases Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody 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 found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to safeguard victim anonymity and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery. Prior Releases Tens of thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including lawsuits, official releases, 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 federal prosecutor's office there, both of which looked into Epstein in the mid-2000s. That federal probe concluded in 2008 with a confidential deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He completed over a year in a jail work-release program.