A federal judge unsealed all investigative files relating to the sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein‘s longtime mistress Ghislaine Maxwell.
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.
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.
The ruling, in the wake of the passage last month of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means the records could be made public within 10 days. The law requires the Justice 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 the department’s request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.