(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Tuesday granted the Justice Department’s motion to release grand jury materials and other nonpublic evidence from the criminal case of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in order to comply with Congress’ directive to publicly release materials from the government’s files on the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer determined in his 24-page order that the Epstein Transparency Act, passed last month, “unambiguously applies” to the discovery materials provided by prosecutors to Maxwell’s defense team in connection with her criminal trial.
The ruling grants the Trump administration’s request to modify the protective order in the case to allow for the Justice Department to publicly release materials subject to certain exemptions delineated by Congress.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted in 2021 on five counts of aiding Epstein in his abuse of underage girls. A substantial subset of the government’s evidence against Maxwell was made public during her three-week trial in federal court in New York.
The Epstein Transparency Act was passed by Congress last month and signed by President Donald Trump following blowback the administration received from MAGA supporters seeking the release of the materials. The law requires the Justice Department to make public all Epstein-related materials in its possession within 30 days of the bill’s passage.
The act allows the DOJ to withhold or redact records to protect the privacy of alleged victims. It also allows the attorney general to withhold records that could jeopardize an ongoing federal investigation or prosecution.
Judge Engelmayer’s order puts in place a protocol to protect victims from the inadvertent release of materials “that would identify them or otherwise invade their privacy.”
“Nothing in this Protective Order shall prohibit the Government from publicly releasing materials whose disclosure is required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” Engelmayer wrote. “The restrictions of this Protective Order, however, remain in place with respect to the segregable portions of records that ‘contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."”
Emphasizing the privacy concerns of the alleged victims, Engelmayer also added a provision to the protective order that will require the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to “personally certify in a sworn declaration” that such records have been rigorously reviewed for compliance,” according to the order.
Engelmayer noted in his order that the alleged victims’ concerns about inadvertent disclosure of their names and other identifying information “have a basis in fact.” He noted that in its two applications to the court to disclose records, the Justice Department acted without prior notice to the victims.
The DOJ, Engelmayer wrote, has paid “lip service” to the victims but has “not treated them with the solicitude they deserve.”
“The certification requirement that the Court is adding to the Protective Order assures that an identifiable official within DOJ takes ownership of the sensitive and vitally important process of reviewing discovery to be publicly released. It will help assure that victims’ statutory privacy rights are protected,” the judge wrote.
Following the ruling, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garica, called on the DOJ to immediately provide those records to the committee, which has an existing bipartisan subpoena to the DOJ for all its Epstein/Maxwell investigative files.
“These files are now part of the Epstein files held by the Department of Justice, and must be turned over to the Oversight Committee in response to our subpoena, and to the public under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ must comply immediately,” Garica said in a statement.
“In addition to this new ruling, a federal judge in Florida has also granted the DOJ’s request to unseal Epstein-related grand jury records from the mid-2000s, and the Committee looks forward to receiving those materials as well,” the statement said.
The DOJ previously indicated to the court that the discovery materials it seeks to make public could include, among other things, search warrant applications, financial and travel records, photographs and videos of relevant properties, immigration records, forensic reports from extractions of electronic devices, materials produced by Epstein’s estate, and reports and notes of interviews of victims and third parties.
Attorneys for Maxwell told the court last week that she took no formal position on the DOJ motion, but argued that the release of nonpublic materials would impact her ability to get a fair retrial if she were to succeed in her forthcoming habeas petition, a longshot bid for a new trial.
“Ms. Maxwell respectfully notes that shortly she will be filing a habeas petition pro se. Releasing the grand jury materials from her case, which contain untested and unproven allegations, would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial should Ms. Maxwell’s habeas petition succeed,” her lawyers wrote.
Regarding the grand jury materials, Engelmayer ruled that the Epstein Files Transparency Act overrides the federal rule of criminal procedure that governs grand jury secrecy. He also determined the act does not exempt grand jury materials from disclosure.
Engelmayer is the second judge to grant a DOJ motion to unseal grand jury testimony and other previously restricted Epstein materials, after U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith last week granted the administration’s request to lift restrictions over grand jury material related to the first federal investigation of Epstein in Florida in the mid-2000s, which ended in his non-prosecution agreement, which was widely criticized.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman is currently considering a similar request from the DOJ to allow the government to disclose materials associated with the 2019 criminal case against Epstein in Manhattan federal court. That case ended with Epstein’s death in August of 2019.
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