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US judge orders release of Epstein-related grand jury records in Ghislaine Maxwell case
The court cleared the Justice Department to release the records in the case related to Maxwell, who is currently serving jail term over sex trafficking charges.
A United States judge on Tuesday allowed for the release of grand jury documents in the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell, associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The court cleared the Justice Department to release the records in the case related to Maxwell, who is currently serving jail term over charges of sex trafficking underage girls with deceased financier Epstein, Reuters reported.
The order was delivered by District Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York, who granted the Justice Department's request.
The request to unseal the documents comes under the new law which requires the Attorney General to release all unclassified files linked to its investigations into the charges against Epstein and Maxwell, according to Reuters.
This comes after a Florida judge passed a similar order in Epstein's case last week.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted in 2021 for child sex trafficking and other offenses following trial. However, despite the conviction, Maxwell has claimed innocence.
The release comes even as the US President Donald Trump-led administration has faced questions related to the Epstein files for months now. Trump has maintained that he ended his friendship with Epstein long before the financier's arrest in 2019, and had vowed to release the files.
However, Trump reversed course on the decision later, while saying that they are a Democratic hoax aimed at distracting from his administration's accomplishments, Reuters reported.
Lawmakers voted to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by US President Trump on November 19. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the measure in a 427-1 vote. It was unanimously fast-tracked by the Senate without a formal vote.
Many Trump voters also believe that his administration has covered up Epstein's ties to powerful figures, and has obscured details linked to the financier's death in a Manhattan jail in 2019, according to the Reuters report.
