Judge unseals Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury materials

A New York federal judge on Tuesday ordered the unsealing of grand jury materials related to the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite convicted of acting as the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s procurer.

Judge Paul Engelmayer’s order in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan came at the request of the Department of Justice, which cited the Epstein Files Transparency Act that Congress passed nearly unanimously in November.

The act mandates the disclosure of material held by the DOJ in connection with its investigations of Epstein, who died from a jailhouse suicide in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term for her conviction for procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.

Grand jury materials normally are permanently sealed, and Engelmayer, in August, denied the DOJ’s initial request to unseal the materials in Maxwell’s case.

In his order Tuesday, the judge noted that the Epstein files “Act does not explicitly refer to grand jury materials.”

But, Englemayer added, “The Court nonetheless holds — again in agreement with DOJ — that the Act textually covers the grand jury materials in this case.”

The judge also noted that the act “references Ghislaine Maxwell,” and that it covered files related to Maxwell.

Englemayer authorized the disclosure of grand jury transcripts and exhibits, as well as extensive material that federal prosecutors disclosed to Maxwell’s defense attorneys for her 2021 criminal trial.

But he also modified a protective order in the case, consistent with the Epstein files act, that implements a mechanism “to protect victims from the inadvertent release of materials … that would identify them or otherwise invade their privacy.”

Although he granted the DOJ’s request to unseal the materials, the judge slapped prosecutors for again not giving notice to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims before asking that the materials be made public.

“In its two rounds of applications to this Court to disclose records, DOJ, although paying lip service to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims, has not treated them with the solicitude they deserve,” Engelmayer wrote.

“In applying on November 24, 2025 for leave to release records pursuant to the Act, DOJ again acted without notice to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims,” the judge wrote. “The Court … were compelled again to direct DOJ forthwith to notify these victims of its latest motion, and to set a deadline for victims’ submissions.

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