A third federal judge has authorized the release of sealed grand jury materials related to Jeffrey Epstein.
On Wednesday, Judge Richard M. Berman of the Southern District of New York granted the Justice Department’s request to unseal the grand jury record from Epstein’s 2019 federal sex-trafficking case. Berman had rejected similar efforts earlier this year under traditional grand jury secrecy rules, but said the newly enacted Epstein Files Transparency Act “supersedes the otherwise secret grand jury materials under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure.” In his August decision denying the release of the transcripts and exhibits, Berman warned that the materials “in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hand of the Department of Justice.”
The new law “unequivocally intends to make public Epstein grand jury materials and discovery materials covered by the Epstein Protective Order,” Berman wrote in his four-page order. The ruling marks another step in the recent push to make the investigative records public ahead of a mid-December deadline imposed by Congress.
Berman’s ruling follows two others issued in the past week. On Tuesday, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer approved the release of a set of grand jury materials from the 2021 prosecution of close Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. And last week, a federal judge in Florida authorized the disclosure of grand jury records from an earlier, abandoned investigation into Epstein.
All three rulings stem from the act, which Congress passed with bipartisan support. President Donald Trump, after initially opposing the files’ release, signed into the bill into law last month. The measure requires the Justice Department to make records related to Epstein and his associates public by December 19 and narrows the categories of information that may remain sealed.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury records in Epstein’s 2019 case consist primarily of testimony from an FBI agent who summarized the government’s evidence, along with a PowerPoint presentation and call logs. Even so, some survivor advocates have supported their release while downplaying their expectations.
“Release to the public of Epstein-related materials is good, so long as the victims are protected in the process,” Brad Edwards, a lawyer for some of Epstein’s victims, told the Associated Press. “With that said, the grand jury receives only the most basic information, so, relatively speaking, these particular materials are insignificant.”
