đź”— Share this article Judge Rules Justice Department May Make Public Ghislaine Maxwell Case Documents A U.S. judge has ruled that the Department of Justice is authorized to carry out the public release of investigative materials from the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Court Order Clears the Path for Records Release Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ formally requested in November to make public grand jury transcripts and exhibits from the cases of both Maxwell and Epstein. This action could lead to the release of hundreds or thousands of hitherto sealed documents. The court's ruling, which follows the recent enactment of the Transparency Act, means these materials could be made public within a 10-day window. The new law requires the DOJ to provide Epstein-related records in a digitally searchable form by December 19. Judicial Pattern of Disclosure Engelmayer is the latest jurist to permit the Justice Department to release previously secret Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a similar request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein from the early 2000s. A further petition concerning records from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case is still under consideration. Scope of Release Greatly Expanded The Justice Department has stated that Congress aimed for this disclosure when it passed the Transparency Act. The latest request vastly expanded the range of files slated for release to include eighteen distinct types of evidence gathered during the wide-ranging probe. These documents 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 officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of related charges in December 2021 and is serving a two-decade sentence. The government has indicated it is consulting survivors and their lawyers and plans to redact records to protect survivors' identities and stop the sharing of explicit imagery. Previous Disclosures Tens of thousands of pages of documents pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have previously been made public through different channels, including civil cases, public disclosures, and FOIA requests. Much of the evidence the Justice Department now plans to release originates from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the 2000s. That investigation ended in 2008 with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution by entering a guilty plea to a state prostitution charge. He served over a year in a jail work-release program.