Judge Says Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Records Can Be Unsealed, Citing New Epstein Law

The ruling cited a law signed last month by President Trump requiring the Justice Department to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday granted the Justice Department’s motion to unseal the records of the grand jury investigation of Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2021 of sex-trafficking a minor and other counts.

The judge, Paul A. Engelmayer, cited in his ruling a new law passed by Congress requiring the Justice Department to release all its files on Mr. Epstein by Dec. 19.

But the opinion makes clear that grand jury transcripts will be only a small part of a large trove of materials that the Justice Department has said it intends to release under the new law.

The department had also asked Judge Engelmayer to modify a protective order issued at the beginning of Ms. Maxwell’s case that maintained strict confidentiality over materials turned over to defense lawyers, known as discovery. “A paramount goal of the protective order,” the judge wrote, was “to protect the privacy interests of Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims.”

In his 24-page opinion on Tuesday, Judge Engelmayer wrote that the new law, known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, “unambiguously” applied to the discovery materials in the case. Modifying the protective order, he added, was necessary to enable the Justice Department “to carry out its legal obligations under the act.”

Such discovery includes materials gathered from searches of physical spaces, like Mr. Epstein’s house and island, and the contents of computers and other electronic devices seized from those spaces.

The discovery materials also include arrest reports and post-arrest statements; bank and other financial records; private airline passenger logs; and reports and notes from interviews with victims.

The new law requires that the materials be released with redactions to protect victims’ names and other identifying information. The act also says that the government may withhold from release information that could jeopardize an active federal investigation or prosecution.

The motion seeking the unsealing of the materials was made last month by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had asked the judge to expedite a ruling given the deadline set by the new law.

Ms. Bondi had also asked a different judge to unseal such materials from the investigation of Mr. Epstein, who was indicted on sex-trafficking charges in July 2019 and detained pending trial; he was found hanged in his jail cell the following month, and his death was ruled a suicide.

The judge in Mr. Epstein’s case, Richard M. Berman, has not yet ruled on that request.

This past summer, Judge Engelmayer and Judge Berman each denied similar requests by Ms. Bondi for the Maxwell and Epstein materials, citing grand jury secrecy. Ms. Bondi renewed her requests to both judges after the new law passed last month.

The requests, submitted by Ms. Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, were signed by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The Justice Department argues that the new law demonstrates a congressional intent “to override some of the underlying bases for grand jury secrecy.”

The department notes, for example, that one purpose of the secrecy rule is to protect people who have not been charged “from the anxiety, embarrassment and public castigation that may result from disclosure.”

The new law mandates that materials may not be “withheld, delayed or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity, including to any governmental official, public figure or foreign dignitary,” the motion says.

Ms. Maxwell was convicted in December 2021 after a monthlong trial of sex-trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking of a minor and other counts.

Judge Engelmayer, in his ruling, noted that in the two rounds of requests to unseal materials, the Justice Department, “although paying lip service to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims, has not treated them with the solicitude they deserve.”

He noted that some of the victims of Mr. Epstein’s and Ms. Maxwell’s crimes had written to the court, and that while they were largely supportive of making the department’s investigative files public, they had “voiced concern that their identities and privacy will be compromised.”

Judge Engelmayer said in his ruling that before any material subject to the protective order was made public, he would require that Mr. Clayton “personally certify that such material has been rigorously reviewed for — and found to be in — compliance” with the act’s provision protecting victim privacy.

The requirement assures, the judge wrote, that “an identifiable official within D.O.J. takes ownership of the sensitive and vitally important process of reviewing discovery to be publicly released.”

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