🔗 Share this article Federal Judge Rules Justice Department Can Release Maxwell Court Documents A U.S. judge has determined that the Department of Justice is authorized to carry out the disclosure of investigative materials from the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein. Court Order Paves the Way for Records Release Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ formally requested in November to unseal grand jury transcripts and evidence from the cases of Epstein and Maxwell. This action could lead to the publication of hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents. The judge's decision, which follows the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means these records could be made public within a 10-day window. The legislation requires the DOJ to provide pertaining to Epstein records in a searchable format by December 19. Growing Trend of Unsealing Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the DOJ to publicly disclose once-confidential Epstein court records. Recently, a judge in Florida approved a comparable petition to unseal records from an earlier federal probe into Epstein from the early 2000s. A separate request concerning records from Epstein's 2019 criminal case is still under consideration. Breadth of Disclosure Greatly Expanded The DOJ has stated that Congress intended this unsealing when it passed the Transparency Act. The most recent filing vastly expanded the scope of files slated for release to include 18 categories of evidence gathered during the wide-ranging probe. These materials are reported to include items such as: Search warrants Financial records Survivor interview notes Electronic device data Material from prior probes in Florida Case Background Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges. He was discovered deceased in a prison cell a month later, with his death officially deemed a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of related charges in December 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. The federal authorities has indicated it is conferring with survivors and their lawyers and will edit records to protect survivors' identities and prevent the dissemination of sensitive imagery. Previous Disclosures Tens of thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell have already been released through various means, including lawsuits, official releases, and FOIA requests. Much of the evidence the DOJ now intends to disclose originates from reports, photographs, videos collected by police in Florida and the federal prosecutor's office there, both of which investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s. That federal probe concluded in 2008 with a confidential deal that enabled Epstein to evade federal prosecution by pleading guilty to a state charge. He completed 13 months in a work-release program.