- The Department of Justice in late-night court filings gave federal judges additional information as part of its efforts to get grand jury proceedings related to notorious sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell unsealed.
- The DOJ said it has now notified all but one of the victims mentioned in those grand jury transcripts.
- The DOJ earlier in July sparked a backlash when it said it would not release information in the Epstein case files, reneging on multiple promises to do so.
In an effort to get the grand jury proceedings surrounding infamous sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell unsealed, the Department of Justice provided federal judges with more information in a late-night court filing on Tuesday.
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All but one of the victims included in the grand jury transcripts have now been notified, the DOJ informed the judges.
In response to pressure on the Trump administration to disclose information about the investigations, Manhattan District Judge Paul Engelmayer made a pointed observation last week that the DOJ might not have informed Epstein and Maxwell’s victims before it initially asked him and another judge to unseal those transcripts.
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Earlier in July, the DOJ broke many pledges to reveal information from the Epstein case files by announcing that it would not.
Due to the outcry following that news, the Trump administration requested the grand jury transcripts be made public and had Maxwell interviewed by a senior DOJ official last week to inquire about any more abusers.
In its filings in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday night, the DOJ stated that “relevant counsel for the Government reviewed the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury transcripts prior to filing the motions to unseal.”
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“In addition, the Government has now provided notice to all but one of the victims who are referenced in the grand jury transcripts at issue in this motion,” according to the documents.
“The government has made failed attempts to get in touch with the surviving victim. Furthermore, the government is currently in the process of notifying any further people who were mentioned in the transcripts.
Judge Richard Berman, who is in charge of Epstein’s case, and Engelmayer, who is in charge of Maxwell’s criminal prosecution, received the submissions.
The documents go into further detail on the DOJ’s original request to make the normally confidential grand jury transcripts public.
“There is undoubtedly a clearly expressed interest from the public in Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes,” the documents stated.
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“Beyond that, there is abundant public interest in the investigative work conducted by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into those crimes.”
Additionally, the documents stated that an FBI agent was the only witness to testify before the grand jury that indicted Epstein on accusations of child sex trafficking. Weeks after being taken into custody on those accusations, Epstein committed suicide in a federal prison in August 2019.
According to the documents, the only witnesses who testified before the other grand jury that indicted Maxwell on sex crime charges were the same FBI agent and a New York police officer who was part of an FBI task force.
In both grand jury trials, the witnesses informed jurors about the testimony of other individuals, including Epstein and Maxwell victims. Grand jury regulations permit such hearsay testimony, which is normally prohibited in criminal prosecutions.
After being found guilty at trial in late 2021 of soliciting and grooming little girls for Epstein’s sexual abuse, Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence in Florida.
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