On Wednesday, US District Judge Richard M. Berman said he would no longer block the release of about 70 pages of grand jury material from Epstein’s 2019 case.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Richard M. Berman said he would no longer block the release of about 70 pages of grand jury material from Epstein’s 2019 case.
Berman, who had previously kept the transcripts sealed, said that a new federal statute now obligates the Justice Department to make Epstein-related files public. He also reiterated that the documents are unlikely to contain dramatic revelations.
The ruling follows two similar decisions this month. On Tuesday, a separate Manhattan judge approved the release of records from Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2021 federal trial. Days earlier, a judge in Florida authorized the unsealing of transcripts from an abandoned grand jury probe of Epstein dating back to the 2000s.
The Justice Department pushed for the secrecy orders to be lifted after President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law that forces the department to disclose Epstein-related records by Dec. 19. The mandate has added pressure to an administration already under scrutiny for releasing only partial material earlier in the year, despite Trump’s campaign pledge to open the files entirely.
Epstein died in jail in August 2019, one month after he was taken into federal custody on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell, accused of helping recruit underage victims and taking part in some abuse, was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year federal sentence.
According to filings reviewed by Berman, only one witness appeared before the grand jury in 2019: an FBI agent who “had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay,” according to the New York Post. The agent testified on June 18 and July 2, 2019. The remainder of the presentation relied on a PowerPoint and call log.
The July 2 session ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein. Judge Berman said those materials, including the slideshow and call records, will stay sealed.
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