🔗 Share this article Federal Judge Rules DOJ May Make Public Maxwell Court Materials A U.S. judge has ruled 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. Court Order Clears the Path for Document Disclosure Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the decision after the DOJ asked the court in November to make public grand jury transcripts and evidence from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This action could lead to the publication of a vast number of hitherto sealed documents. The judge's decision, which comes in the wake of the recent enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day period. The new law mandates the Justice Department 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 DOJ to release once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a Florida judge granted a comparable petition to unseal records from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the early 2000s. A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case is still under consideration. Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged The DOJ has stated that Congress intended this disclosure when it enacted the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the scope of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the extensive probe. These materials are reported to include items such as: Search warrants Banking documents Survivor interview notes Electronic device data Material from prior probes in Florida Context of the Cases Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested 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 convicted of sex-trafficking charges in December 2021 and is currently serving a two-decade sentence. The government has indicated it is consulting victims and their attorneys 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 various means, including civil cases, official releases, and FOIA requests. Much of the evidence the Justice Department now intends to disclose originates from photos, videos, and reports gathered by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s. That federal probe ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He completed over a year in a work-release program.