New York federal judge orders DOJ to unseal Jeffrey Epstein case files

MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge in New York City ordered the Department of Justice on Wednesday morning to unseal grand jury materials from the federal investigation into the late financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

U.S. District Judge Richard Berman granted the government’s motion to unseal grand jury materials from the Epstein case in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act with the accommodation that Epstein’s victims to have their identity and privacy protected.

At the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi, federal prosecutors requested an expedited ruling to unseal the grand jury transcripts and exhibits in a letter to Berman in late November. They cited the act Congress passed nearly unanimously last month, aimed at shining a spotlight on the federal government’s investigation into Epstein.

Berman, a Bill Clinton appointee, presided over Epstein’s case in the Southern District of New York. The case ultimately dismissed following Epstein’s death in his Manhattan jail cell in federal custody, a month after his July 2019 arrest on sex trafficking conspiracy charges. His death was ruled to be a suicide by hanging.

Berman did conduct a hearing in August 2019 for more than a dozen of Epstein’s victims to speak about their experiences in the absence of a trial following the financier’s death.

Many of the women who testified called on prosecutors to investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators in the sex trafficking operation,  including Ghislaine Maxwell and Sarah Kellen.

Maxwell was arrested in July 2020, a year to the day after Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

Witness testimony at Maxwell’s trial in 2021 placed several high-profile, wealthy men — including King Charles III’s brother Andrew and Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz — at Epstein’s private island and other properties where victims say they were forced into sex.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and then-former President Donald Trump were both named at Maxwell’s trial as notable repeat passengers on Epstein’s private jet.

Trump had long been opposed to efforts to force the release of the Epstein files, repeatedly referring to the issue as a “hoax” pushed by Democrats. But the president abruptly changed course in mid-November, writing on his social media platform Truth Social that House Republicans should vote to release the files, “because we have nothing to hide.”

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