Judge rejects government motion to make public grand jury evidence from sex trafficking cases involving Jeffrey Epstein and convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell
A federal judge has denied the Justice Department’s motion to unseal grand jury materials related to the sex trafficking cases against dead trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime lover and convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
In a 31-page opinion and order on the motion, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer shot down the motion, finding the documents do not contain « significant, undisclosed information about [their] crimes, or the investigation into them. »
He wrote that only two « features » of the grand jury evidence were noteworthy, summarizing them in his decision:
« First, the grand juries in this case were not used for investigative purposes », he wrote. « They did not hear testimony from any firsthand witness to any event at issue. They did not hear testimony from any victim, eyewitness, suspect, or even a records custodian. The grand juries met instead for the quotidian purpose of returning an indictment.
