NEW YORK (AP) —A federal judge said Tuesday that the Justice Department can publicly release investigative materials from a sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidante of Jeffrey Epstein.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled after the Justice Department in November asked two judges in New York to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits, along with investigative materials that could amount to hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.
He's the second judge to allow the Justice Department to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein-related records.
Last week, a judge in Florida granted the department’s request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.
A request to release records from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case is still pending.
The Justice Department said Congress intended the unsealing when it passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month.