Grand jury materials related to an abandoned federal probe into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have been ordered released by a judge in Florida.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith has demanded the Justice Department disclose nearly all records relating to an Epstein probe between 2005 and 2007, allowing it to bypass regulations that typically prohibit the release of grand jury material.
Smith, an appointee of President Donald Trump, did not set a deadline for releasing the documents.
The judge initially declined to order the release of the documents. However, a bill begrudgingly signed by Trump last month—after he pushed to have it killed—set a Dec. 19 deadline for much of the Epstein files to be released, clearing the way for Smith to issue his own order.
Other unsealing requests citing the new law are pending in New York before the judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases there, the Wall Street Journal reports. Their decisions on whether to unseal or not are reportedly expected in the coming weeks.
A lawyer for Maxwell, currently in federal prison for a sex trafficking conviction, has pushed for the materials involving her to remain under wraps.
The Florida grand jury probe of Epstein was conducted in West Palm Beach, near his residence in nearby Palm Beach, which is also home to Mar-a-Lago. The disgraced financier was being investigated on suspicion that he may have been preying on scores of underage girls in his mansion.
It is unclear what new revelations may emerge from the release of the documents in Florida. The material was made available to federal prosecutors in New York who charged Epstein with sex trafficking in 2019—the same year as his jailhouse suicide.
Epstein was not slapped with federal charges as a result of the first federal probe.
Instead, he struck a deal that saw him plead guilty to state solicitation charges involving a single underage victim, while also quietly reaching a non-prosecution agreement with the federal government.
Epstein was also forced to accept a prison term, register as a sexual offender, and set up a way for his victims to obtain monetary damages. Still, none of that shook his status as a socialite with some of the world’s biggest names, like the British royal formerly known as Prince Andrew, who had his title stripped this year due to his cozy relationship with Epstein.
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