🔗 Share this article Judge Decides DOJ Can Make Public Ghislaine Maxwell Court Documents A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice is authorized to carry out the disclosure of case files from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein. Court Order Clears the Path for Document Disclosure Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This request could lead to the release of a vast number of previously unreleased documents. The judge's decision, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day window. The legislation requires the Justice Department to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by December 19. Judicial Pattern of Unsealing Engelmayer is the latest jurist to allow the DOJ to publicly disclose once-confidential records from the Epstein case. Recently, a Florida judge granted a comparable petition to unseal records from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the 2000s. A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case remains pending. Scope of Release Greatly Expanded The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress intended this disclosure when it enacted the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of investigative materials during the extensive probe. These documents are reported to include items such as: Court-issued warrants Financial records Survivor interview notes Data from digital devices Material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida Context of the Cases Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was taken into custody in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. He was discovered deceased in a prison cell a month later, with his death officially deemed 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 plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and prevent the dissemination of explicit imagery. Previous Disclosures Tens of thousands of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through various means, including civil cases, public disclosures, and Freedom of Information Act requests. Much of the material the DOJ now intends to disclose stems from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida and the local U.S. attorney’s office, both of which looked into Epstein in the mid-2000s. That investigation concluded in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that enabled Epstein to evade federal charges by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He served 13 months in a work-release program.