Feds can unseal Maxwell case files, judge rules

The Justice Department can release investigative materials from a sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, a federal judge said Tuesday.

- MICHAEL R. SISAK

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled after the Justice Department in November asked 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, after last month’s passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means the records could be made public within 10 days. The law requires that the department provide Epstein-related records to the public in a searchable format by Dec. 19.

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 its request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.

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

The Justice Department said Congress intended the unsealing when it passed the transparency act, which President Trump signed into law last month.

Three judges — two in New York and one in Florida — had previously refused an unusual department request to unseal grand jury transcripts.