Judge grants Justice Department request to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell records in sex trafficking case

NEW YORK AP The Justice Department can publicly release investigative materials from a sex trafficking scenario against Ghislaine Maxwell the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein a federal judge revealed on Tuesday Judge Paul A Engelmayer ruled after the Justice Department in November appealed two judges in New York to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from Maxwell and Epstein s cases along with investigative materials that could amount to hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents The ruling in the wake of the passage last month of the Epstein Files Transparency Act means the records could be made populace within days The law requires the Justice Department provide Epstein-related records to the citizens in a searchable format by Dec Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records Last week a judge in Florida granted the department s request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury research into Epstein in the s A request to release records from Epstein s sex trafficking scenario is still pending The Justice Department commented Congress intended the unsealing 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 refused an atypical department request to unseal grand jury transcripts The latest request though dramatically enlarged the files that the department announced it planned to release to encompass categories of investigative materials gathered in the massive sex trafficking probe Epstein a financier was arrested in July on sex trafficking charges a month before he was ascertained dead in a federal jail cell The death was ruled a suicide Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking charges in December She is serving a -year prison sentence In response to a request by the New York judges for more specifics on what it would release the department mentioned in contemporary submissions in Manhattan federal court that the materials would include categories including search warrants financial records survivor interview notes electronic device content and material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida The executive revealed it was conferring with survivors and their lawyers and planned to redact records to ensure protection of survivors identities and prevent the dissemination of sexualized images After the request to unseal investigative files last month two judges in New York invited Maxwell the Epstein estate and accusers to provide opinions about the request Maxwell s lawyer announced his client took no position about the requested unsealing except to note that her plans to file a habeas petition could be spoiled because the residents release of materials would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial if the habeas request succeeded Lawyers for the Epstein estate took no position At least one outspoken Epstein accuser Annie Farmer stated through her lawyer Sigrid S McCawley that Farmer is wary of the possibility that any denial of the motions may be used by others as a pretext or excuse for continuing to withhold crucial information concerning Epstein s crimes In August Judges Richard M Berman and Paul A Engelmayer in Manhattan denied the department s requests to unseal grand jury transcripts and other material from Epstein and Maxwell s cases ruling that such disclosures are rarely if ever allowed Tens of thousands of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell have already been issued through lawsuits citizens disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests Multiple of the materials the Justice Department plans to release stem from reports photographs videos and other materials gathered by police in Palm Beach Florida and the U S attorney s office there both of which investigated Epstein in the mid- s Last year a Florida judge ordered the release of about pages of transcripts from a state grand jury that investigated Epstein in On Dec at the Justice Department s request a Florida judge ordered the unsealing of transcripts from a federal grand jury there that also investigated Epstein That analysis ended in with a then-secret arrangement that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges by pleading guilty to a state prostitution charge He served months in a jail work-release activity