U.S. Justice Department can unseal records from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case, judge says

This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein on March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry/AP via CNN Newsource)

NEW YORK -- Secret grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be made public, a judge ruled on Wednesday, joining two other judges in granting the U.S. Justice Department’s requests to unseal material from investigations into the late financier’s sexual abuse.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman reversed his earlier decision to keep the material under wraps, citing a new law that requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge previously cautioned that the 70 or so pages of grand jury materials slated for release are hardly revelatory and “merely a hearsay snippet” of Epstein’s conduct.

On Tuesday, another Manhattan federal judge ordered the release of records from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking case. Last week, a judge in Florida approved the unsealing of transcripts from an abandoned Epstein federal grand jury investigation in the 2000s.

The U.S. Justice Department asked the judges to lift secrecy orders in the cases after the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump last month, created a narrow exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings confidential. The law requires that the U.S. Justice Department disclose Epstein-related material to the public by Dec. 19.

The court records cleared for release are just a sliver of the government’s trove -- a collection of potentially tens of thousands of pages of documents, including FBI notes and reports; transcripts of witness interviews, photographs, videos and other evidence; Epstein’s autopsy report; flight logs and travel records.

While lawyers for Epstein’s estate told Berman in a letter last week that the estate took no position on the U.S. Justice Department’s unsealing request, some Epstein victims backed it.

“For far too long, the Epstein survivors and the public have been kept in the dark about the inner-workings of Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation,” said Sigrid McCawley, a lawyer for some victims. “This week’s court rulings are an important step toward accountability to close the vast gap between what is known and unknown.”

Another lawyer, Brad Edwards, said unsealing the records “is good, so long as the victims are protected in the process.” But, he added, “the grand jury receives only the most basic information, so, relatively speaking, these particular materials are insignificant.”

Questions about the government’s Epstein files have dominated the first year of Trump’s second term, with pressure on the Republican president intensifying after he reneged on a campaign promise to release the files. His administration released some material, most of it already public, disappointing critics and some allies.

Berman was matter-of-fact in his ruling on Wednesday, writing that the transparency law “unequivocally intends to make public Epstein grand jury materials and discovery materials” that had previously been covered by secrecy orders. The law “supersedes the otherwise secret grand jury materials,” he wrote.

The judge, who was appointed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, implored the U.S. Justice Department to carefully follow the law’s privacy provisions to ensure that victims’ names and other identifying information are blacked out. Victim safety and privacy “are paramount,” he wrote.

In court filings, the U.S. Justice Department informed Berman that the only witness to testify before the Epstein grand jury was an FBI agent who, the judge noted, “had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay.”

The agent testified on two days, on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019. The rest of the grand jury presentation consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow and four pages of call logs. The July 2 session ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein.

Epstein, a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims and participating in some of the abuse. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Maxwell’s lawyer told a judge last week that unsealing records from her case “would create undue prejudice” and could spoil her plans to file a habeas petition, a legal filing seeking to overturn her conviction. The Supreme Court in October declined to hear Maxwell’s appeal.

Maxwell’s grand jury records include testimony from the FBI agent and a New York Police Department detective.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer sought to temper expectations as he approved their release on Tuesday, writing that the materials “do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor.”

“They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s,” wrote Engelmayer, an appointee of former U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.”

By Michael R. Sisak