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A federal judge has ordered grand jury documents from the case. Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell It will be opened after President Donald Trump signs a measure that forces the release of all materials related to it The investigation of his associate Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty of recruiting and grooming young women and girls, did not fight the renewed pressure to unseal the documents, but she warned that the public release of grand jury files from her case could compromise her longtime effort to get a new trial.
Maxwell and Epstein’s victims urged the court to seal the files, but sought assurances that their identities and privacy would not be compromised.
In his order Tuesday, New York District Judge Paul Engelmayer said their concerns “regretfully have a basis in fact,” because the Justice Department failed to give victims notice of the government’s intention to unseal the documents earlier this year.
“Although the DOJ has shown respect for Maxwell and Epstein’s victims, it has not treated them with the compassion they deserve,” the judge wrote.
The victims’ letters to the court “widely express distress at the lack of notice given to them by DOJ … and concern that release of grand jury records by DOJ, if authorized to do so, would be an invasion of their privacy,” Engelmayer said.
They wrote, “This proposal misled victims – and the public at large – by portraying the Maxwell grand jury materials as necessary to the goal of ‘transparency to the American public,’ when in fact the grand jury materials would not increase public knowledge.”
Last month, Trump reluctantly agreed to sign a measure approved by Congress that binds the Justice Department Release all investigative materials in its possession from the Epstein caseThe deadline for public release of those documents is Dec, 19,
But those files do not include material reviewed by the grand jury that considered indictments against Epstein or Maxwell.
Last week, a federal judge in Florida ordered the release of grand jury material from a dropped 2005 and 2007 case against Epstein. No time frame was given in the order from Trump-appointed District Judge Rodney Smith.
Another judge is considering a separate request to unseal grand jury documents in Epstein’s case in New York, where he died in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
Maxwell was convicted in 2020 of crimes related to Epstein’s decades-long scheme to recruit young women and girls — some as young as 14 — then sexually abused them.
According to prosecutors, from 1994 to 2004, Maxwell and Epstein worked together to recruit young girls and entice them to travel to Epstein’s properties. During a month-long trial in 2021, survivors testified in Manhattan federal court that Maxwell had groomed them, taken their passports, and sexually assaulted them.
Supreme Court in October Maxwell’s appeal rejected He then asked the country’s highest court to review whether prosecutors pursued the case against him fairly.
Maxwell’s lawyers had argued in court documents that Epstein’s agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida, which included a pledge not to prosecute him or potential co-conspirators, should apply to any one count in Maxwell’s case.
In July, the Justice Department determined that “no further disclosure” in the Epstein case “would be appropriate or necessary.” But in an apparent effort to quell criticism of the verdict, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch interviewed Maxwell for two days at a Florida courthouse near the maximum-security prison where he is incarcerated.
Maxwell agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, and was Suddenly transferred to a minimum security prison in Texas.
In his interview with BlancheMaxwell said she “absolutely never” saw Trump behave inappropriately with anyone in Epstein’s circle and praised the president for his “extraordinary accomplishment in being president now.” She also said that she “liked him.”
Lawyers for Annie Farmer, who testified under oath that Maxwell groomed and assaulted her when she was a teenager, wrote to the judges overseeing the cases last week, warning that refusing any motion to unseal documents “could be used as a pretext or excuse for continuing to withhold important information related to Epstein’s crimes.”
“Epstein’s victims have been denied justice for too long by multiple government administrations of both parties,” she wrote.