US Politics
Jeffrey Epstein files: ’2019 sex trafficking case records to be unsealed as judge approves final DOJ request over secret transcripts
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Secret grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be made public, a judge ruled Wednesday.
He joined two other judges in granting the Justice Department’s requests to unseal material from investigations into the late financier’s sexual abuse.
U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman reversed his earlier decision to keep the material under wraps, citing a new law that requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell.
The judge previously cautioned that the 70 or so pages of grand jury materials slated for release are hardly revelatory.
On Tuesday, a different Manhattan federal judge ordered the release of records from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking case.
Victims of Maxwell and Epstein had urged the court to unseal the files but wanted assurance that their identities and privacy wouldn’t be compromised.
In his order on Tuesday, New York District Judge Paul Engelmayer said their concerns “regrettably have a basis in fact,” after the Department of Justice failed to give notice to victims about the government’s motions to unseal the documents earlier this year.
“DOJ, although paying lip service to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims, has not treated them with the solicitude they deserve,” the judge wrote.
Victims’ letters to the court “widely expressed distress at the lack of notice given to them by DOJ … and alarm that the grand jury records DOJ would release, if authorized to do so, would invade their privacy,” Engelmayer added.
Last week, a judge in Florida approved the unsealing of transcripts from an abandoned Epstein federal grand jury investigation in the 2000s.
The Justice Department asked the judges to lift secrecy orders after the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump last month, created a narrow exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings confidential.
The law requires that the Justice Department disclose Epstein-related records to the public by Dec. 19.
Questions about the government’s Epstein files have dominated the first year of Trump’s second term, with pressure on the Republican intensifying after he reneged on a campaign promise to release the files.
His administration released some material, most of it already public, disappointing critics and some allies.
Epstein, a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims and participating in some of the abuse. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
In court filings, the Justice Department informed Berman that the only witness to testify before the Epstein grand jury was an FBI agent who, the judge noted, “had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay.”
The agent testified over two days, on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019. The rest of the grand jury presentation consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow and a call log.
The July 2 session, which ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein. Both of those will also remain sealed, Berman ruled.