đź”— Share this article Federal Judge Decides DOJ May Make Public Ghislaine Maxwell Court Documents 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 close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Judicial Ruling Paves the Way for Document Disclosure Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the Justice Department asked the court in November to unseal grand jury records and exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This request could lead to the publication of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed documents. The judge's decision, which follows the recent enactment 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 digitally searchable form by a specified date in December. Judicial Pattern of Unsealing Engelmayer is the second judge to permit the DOJ to release once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida approved 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 is still under consideration. Breadth of Disclosure Significantly Enlarged The Justice Department has stated that the U.S. Congress intended this unsealing when it passed the transparency act. The most recent filing dramatically enlarged the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of investigative materials during the extensive sex-trafficking investigation. These materials are reported to include items such as: Court-issued warrants Banking documents Survivor interview notes Data from digital devices Evidence from prior probes in Florida Case Background 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 ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison 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 explicit imagery. Previous Disclosures A significant number of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through different channels, including civil cases, public disclosures, and FOIA requests. Much of the material the DOJ now plans to release stems 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 investigation concluded in 2008 with a confidential deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state charge. He served over a year in a work-release program.