A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s request to release grand jury documents related to the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former aide of disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The U.S. Justice Department had called for the unsealing of testimony and evidence involving Maxwell and Epstein.
On Monday, Judge Paul Engelmayer said the materials were of no public or historical interest.
“The Court therefore denies the Government’s motion to unseal at the threshold. Contrary to the Government’s depiction, the Maxwell grand jury testimony is not a matter of significant historical or public interest. Far from it,” Engelmayer wrote, adding that a significant portion of the documents the government requested were already in the public domain after being presented at Maxwell’s 2021 trial.
FILE – Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend an event in 2005 in New York City.
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“It consists of garden-variety summary testimony by two law enforcement agents. And the information it contains is already almost entirely a matter of longstanding public record, principally as a result of live testimony by percipient witnesses at the 2021 Maxwell trial.”
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Engelmayer also said it was evident to him that the Trump administration was not familiar with Maxwell’s trial because its request identified records that were presented during Maxwell’s trial as sealed, suggesting that it intended to deflect public attention from the case.
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“A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at ‘transparency’ but at diversion – aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,” he wrote.
Last week, Maxwell said she opposed the federal government’s request to unseal the files, which she argued would be in contravention of her legal rights.
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“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not. Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain,” her lawyers wrote in a formal response.
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Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in Epstein’s sex abuse scandal and is in the process of appealing her 2021 conviction.
“Given that she is actively litigating her case and does not know what is in the grand jury record, she has no choice but to respectfully oppose the government’s motion to unseal it,” her lawyers, David Oscar Markus and Melissa Madrigal, wrote.
Maxwell has re-entered the spotlight in recent weeks after giving an interview with U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and being transferred to a lesser security prison in Texas.
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