A federal judge in New York ruled the US Department of Justice can publicly release grand jury records from Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case.
US District Judge Richard Berman’s ruling reverses his previous decision to keep the material sealed. He cited a new law passed by Congress requiring the justice department to release files about Epstein.
In his latest ruling, Judge Berman said the victims have the right to “have their identity and privacy protected”, adding that their “safety and privacy are paramount”.
Esptein was charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. He died in a New York prison cell a month later while awaiting trail.
Judge Berman in August had denied the justice department’s request because of concerns about “possible threats to victims’ safety and privacy”.
But in Wednesday’s ruling, he said the materials could now be released because of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by US President Donald Trump last month.
The law requires the justice department to release investigative material related to Epstein by 19 December, including unclassified records, documents and communications.
It also allows the department to withhold files that involve active criminal investigations or raise privacy concerns.
Judge Berman is the third federal judge to grant similar requests from the justice department since the new law was introduced. On Tuesday, another judge made a similar ruling in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in facilitating Epstein’s abuse.
During her trial, prosecutors argued Maxwell recruited and groomed girls, some as young as 14, between 1994 and 2004, before they were abused by Epstein. She is serving a 20-year sentence.
Last Friday, a judge in Florida granted a different request to unseal grand jury transcripts from another investigation into Epstein from 2005 and 2007.
The Trump administration has faced months of pressure over the Epstein files. The president was a friend of Epstein’s, but has said they fell out in the early 2000s, years before the disgraced financier was first arrested.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, he promised to make the files public, and early in the year his administration released thousands of pages of documents from the Epstein investigation – mostly flight logs.
However, justice department officials in July said in a memo no further material would be released.
That prompted anger from within both parties, and lawmakers introduced a resolution forcing the files’ release.
Trump, who previously dismissed calls to release the files, signed the bill into law in November marking a major reversal in his position.
The family of Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who died by suicide earlier this year, said Trump signing the bill was “nothing short of monumental”.
The files which must be made public this month are different to the documents released by the House Oversight Committee, which had subpoenaed Epstein’s estate earlier in the year.
Those documents included images of Jeffrey Epstein’s US Virgin Islands home, which showed several bedrooms, a room with masks on a wall and a phone with names written on speed-dial buttons.
Multiple survivors have alleged that they were trafficked to and abused on the island, known as Little St James, which Epstein purchased in 1998.
The images from 2020 also showed what appeared to be a dental chair, and another room that had a black chalkboard on the wall with the words “truth”, “deception” and “power” scrawled across it.
The committee’s Democratic leader, Robert Garcia, said the material was released to “ensure public transparency”.
Republicans, who are in the majority on the committee, criticised Democrats for releasing selective information in advance and then released a further batch of documents.
By BBC News
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