Judge rules Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury records can be unsealed

A federal judge in New York has ruled the US Department of Justice can publicly release grand jury materials from Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking investigation.US District Judge Paul Engelmayer said he was ordering the release of material because of a recent law passed by Congress, which requires the justice department to publish files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by the end of next week. In his ruling, he said the court would put in place mechanisms to protect victims from the release of materials that would "identify them or otherwise invade their privacy". Maxwell was convicted in 2021 for her role in luring underage girls for Epstein, her former boyfriend, to exploit. Epstein died in prison in 2019.Prosecutors argued Maxwell recruited and groomed girls, some as young as 14, between 1994 and 2004, before they were abused by Epstein.Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, was moved from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas in August, after she was interviewed by Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche about Epstein. In a letter to Judge Engelmayer, Maxwell's legal team said she did not take a position on the justice department's motion to release the grand jury material.Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which has released thousands of files and messages it subpoenaed from Epstein's estate, said the unsealing was a "victory for transparency". "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," he said. The order to publish the records followed a similar ruling from a judge in Florida on Friday, which allowed for the unsealing of documents related to the state's investigation against Epstein that began in 2005.Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in November after previously rejecting calls to release the files. The law "applies to unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials" that relate to Epstein and Maxwell, a court order said.The justice department has until 19 December to publicly release all the information from federal investigations into Epstein, though the law also allows the department to withhold files that involve active criminal investigations or raise privacy concerns.Florida and New York judges had previously refused to unseal grand jury materials related to Epstein, citing federal rules that require grand jury processes to be kept secret.But after Congress passed the bill to release the Epstein material, the justice department made the same request, arguing the legislation's "clear mandate" should "override" those secrecy rules.