A federal judge in New York on Tuesday granted a Justice Department request to release grand jury documents related to Ghislaine Maxwell’s case.
Judge Paul Engelmayer said in his ruling Tuesday that he took great care to “put in place a mechanism to protect victims from the inadvertent disclosure of documents in discovery in this case that could identify them or invade their privacy.”
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of federal sex trafficking charges. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Tuesday’s ruling comes days after a federal judge in Florida also ordered the release of the grand jury investigations of Jeffrey Epstein from 2005 and 2007. Both rulings came after Congress last month passed a law ordering the Justice Department to release all of its Epstein-related records.
Another judge has yet to rule on a separate request to unseal New York grand jury records relating to Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
NBC News has reached out to Maxwell’s attorney for comment.
Last week, Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a filing that Maxwell “takes no position” on the Justice Department’s request to unseal the documents, but argued that releasing the documents would “create undue prejudice” and prevent “the possibility of a fair new trial.”
The Justice Department filed a motion to unseal the grand jury transcripts in July after Trump urged Attorney General Pam Bondi “to produce any relevant testimony to the grand jury, subject to court approval.”
In his opinion released Tuesday, Engelmayer acknowledged that victims of Epstein and Maxwell who wrote letters to the court “broadly support the law’s order that the DOJ’s investigative records” be made public. Yet, according to the judge, they expressed concerns that their identities and privacy would be compromised when the records were released.
Engelmayer added that “victims’ concerns are unfortunately based in fact.” He argued that the Justice Department paid “lip service” to victims but “failed to treat them with the care they deserve,” noting that the Justice Department filed the motion to unseal the grand jury documents in July “without informing the victims of Maxwell and Epstein.”
The judge said the court would require a prosecutor to “personally certify” that the documents were “rigorously reviewed” before being made public to ensure the identities of survivors are protected.
The judge referenced a federal judge in Florida who ruled against releasing the records before another judge reversed course, saying the court’s initial refusal noted that “the motion itself misled victims — and the public in general — by presenting Maxwell’s grand jury documents as essential to the goal of ‘transparency to the American public,’ when in fact the grand jury documents would add nothing to public knowledge.”
