Judge approves Justice Department request to release Ghislaine Maxwell’s records in sex trafficking case

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge said Tuesday that the Justice Department can make public investigative materials from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidant.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made his ruling after the Justice Department in November asked two New York judges to release grand jury transcripts and documents from the Maxwell and Epstein cases, along with investigative material that could amount to hundreds or thousands of previously undisclosed documents.

The ruling, following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month, means the records could be made public within 10 days. The law requires the Justice Department to provide records related to Epstein to the public in a searchable format by December 19.

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to publicly release Epstein’s previously secret court records. Last week, a Florida judge granted the department’s request to release transcripts of the abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.

Read more: A judge ordered the release of grand jury transcripts from the abandoned Epstein investigation in Florida

A request to release records from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case remains pending.

The Justice Department said Congress intended to disclose the matter 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 rejected an unusual request from the administration to release grand jury transcripts.

However, the latest request significantly expanded the files the department said it intended to release to include 18 categories of investigative material collected in the massive sex trafficking investigation.

Epstein, the financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, a month before he was found dead in a federal prison cell. The death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking charges in December 2021. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

In response to a request from New York judges for more details about what it would release, the department said in recent briefs filed in Manhattan federal court that the materials would include 18 categories including search warrants, financial records, survivor interview notes, electronic device data and materials from previous Epstein investigations in Florida.

The government said it was consulting with survivors and their lawyers and intended to redact records to ensure the protection of survivors’ identities and prevent the publication of sexualized images.

After requesting disclosure of the investigation files last month, two New York judges invited Maxwell, Epstein’s family and the defendants to submit opinions on the request.

Maxwell’s lawyer said his client took no position on the discovery request, other than to note that her plans to file a habeas corpus petition could be scuppered because public release of the materials “would create undue prejudice so severe that it would preclude the possibility of a fair retrial” if the habeas corpus petition is successful.

Lawyers for Epstein’s estate have not taken a position. At least one of Epstein’s outspoken accusers, Annie Farmer, said through her attorney, Sigrid S. McCauley, that Farmer “is concerned that others may use any denial of the requests as a pretext or excuse to continue withholding important information related to Epstein’s crimes.”

In August, Judges Richard M. Berman and Paul A. Engelmayer in Manhattan requested the department release grand jury transcripts and other materials from the Epstein and Maxwell cases, ruling that such disclosure would rarely, if ever, be permitted.

Tens of thousands of pages of records related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through lawsuits, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Many of the materials the Justice Department plans to release stem from reports, photos, videos and other materials collected by police in Palm Beach, Florida, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s.

Last year, a Florida judge ordered the release of about 150 pages of transcripts from a state grand jury that investigated Epstein in 2006. On December 5, at the request of the Justice Department, a judge in Florida ordered the release of transcripts from a federal grand jury there that also investigated Epstein.

That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge. He spent 13 months in the prison’s work release program.