US judge orders unsealing of court records from abandoned Jeffrey Epstein case

A US judge has ordered the unsealing of grand jury transcripts from the 2005 and 2007 investigation into convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The Florida judge granted the justice department's request for the material following Congress' passage last month of a bill ordering the release of all files on the disgraced financier. The law "applies to unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials" that relate to Epstein and his accomplice-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, the court order said.A similar Department of Justice request was rejected in August because it violated a federal rule on grand jury materials, which the newly signed law overrides.US District Judge Rodney Smith granted the government's expedited motion to unseal the typically secret grand jury transcripts and modify a protective order that previously barred the release of the materials. In Friday's order, reviewed by the BBC, Judge Smith noted "the later-enacted and specific language of the Act trumps prohibition on disclosure".The justice department is also requesting the unsealing of documents in New York from Epstein's 2019 sex-trafficking case and Maxwell's 2021 sex-trafficking case.The documents relate to a case investigating whether Epstein abused underage girls. It ended without any federal charges being filed against the late financier. Epstein's struck a controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2008 and pleaded guilty to lesser state prostitution charges.Questions have swirled ever since about how Epstein was allowed to avoid federal sex-trafficking charges.US President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law last month after previously rejecting calls to release the files, which have dogged him during his second term in office. The law compels the justice department, FBI and federal prosecutors by 19 December to disclose the tranche of materials amassed during investigations into Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, was moved from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas in August. On Wednesday, Maxwell's attorney filed a letter in Manhattan federal court asking to be released early. While the transparency law gives the justice department 30 days to release the files, it also allows it to withhold material related to an active criminal investigation, identify victims of Epstein's abuse or invade their privacy, or contain images of physical and child sex abuse, death, or injury.Material that could jeopardize an active federal investigation, is classified or that pertains to national defence or foreign policy is typically not made public, per justice department policy.Earlier this week, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released images of Epstein's infamous island.The photos showed several bedrooms in the US Virgin Islands home, as well as a room with masks on a wall and a phone with names written on speed-dial buttons.