The judge who presided over Jeffrey Epstein’s truncated sex-trafficking prosecution agreed on Wednesday to unseal materials from the grand jury proceedings that led to the notorious predator’s high-profile 2019 arrest.
In a succinct four-page order, Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman granted the Justice Department’s request to unseal the records in accordance with the recently enacted Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires federal law enforcement to share its investigative files on the deceased financier with the public.
Transcripts and exhibits from the grand jury proceedings will be unsealed, along with evidence previously kept confidential under a protective order, Berman said in his ruling. He noted that the new law superseded the federal rule of criminal procedure that otherwise governs the secrecy of such materials.
Berman’s ruling followed a similar decision by a judge on Ghislaine Maxwell’s case on Tuesday and by a Florida judge last week concerning materials in the 2005 and 2007 investigations into Epstein, which led to his maligned sweetheart deal with the feds that saw him serve 13 months in a county jail, despite allegations he had sexually exploited more than two dozen women and girls.
Echoing Judge Paul Engelmayer, who agreed to unseal materials in Maxwell’s case, Berman cited a provision in the new legislation that requires the feds to protect the victims’ privacy.
“Epstein victims’ attorneys have written to the Court, and the Court agrees, that disclosure under the Act ‘CANNOT come at the expense of the privacy, safety, and protection of sexual abuse and sex trafficking victims,’” Berman wrote.
Epstein was found dead at age 66 in a cell at lower Manhattan’s since-shuttered Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019, around a month after he was arrested getting off his private airplane on the tarmac at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey. His death was officially ruled a suicide.
Berman formally dismissed Epstein’s prosecution at a proceeding weeks later, since he was dead and could no longer be brought to justice, yet — in a highly unusual move — extended an invitation to women who alleged they were abused by the financier to detail their trauma in court.
The materials ordered for release are expected to provide a comprehensive look at the federal investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, who was convicted of participating in the financier’s sex-trafficking ring in December 2021 and is currently serving a 20-year sentence.
But it’s not clear how much will be news to those who have closely followed the saga. A lone FBI agent testified in the grand jury proceedings against Epstein, the government told the court earlier this year. In the investigation into Maxwell, grand jurors heard from an FBI agent and an NYPD detective.
The DOJ first requested the materials be unsealed over the summer in motions shot down by Berman and Engelmayer on grounds of grand jury secrecy. In denying those requests, both judges called out the government for overselling the materials’ significance.
Berman in August said the information paled in comparison to the larger trove in the hands of the DOJ.
“The Government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials,” the judge wrote.
Berman was referring to the more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence that the DOJ and FBI cited in a July memo, which said the multimillionaire predator harmed more than 1,000 victims. The agencies, at that time, said publicly releasing the materials would be inappropriate and unwarranted.
Public pressure ramped up after The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump had been informed his name appeared in the trove, one in a series of bombshell exposés that shed light on his decades-long friendship with the well-connected wealth manager. Trump has denied engaging in Epstein’s prolific abuse or having been aware of it.
Following sustained lobbying to release the caseload, primarily led by Democrats, Congress members almost unanimously voted to release the so-called “Epstein files” in November.
The government has until Dec. 19 to share the materials with the public, though their full release may be limited by active investigations, including one personally ordered by Trump into Epstein’s ties to Democrats like President Bill Clinton.