Justice Department can unseal records from Epstein's 2019 sex
trafficking case, judge says
[December 11, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
NEW YORK (AP) — 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 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 Justice Department asked the judges to lift secrecy orders in the
cases after the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and
signed into law by President Donald Trump last month, created a narrow
exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings
confidential. The law requires that the 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 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.
[to top of second column]
|
This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry
shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender
Registry via AP, File)
The judge, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat,
implored the 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 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 President Barack
Obama, a Democrat. “They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means
or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.”
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
