Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge in New York on Dec. 9 ruled that the Department of Justice (DOJ) can unseal records in the case against Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, weeks after the passage of a law that required the government to disclose case records related to both Epstein and Maxwell.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued the ruling after the DOJ, in November, asked two judges in New York to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from Maxwell and Epstein’s cases, along with investigative materials.

Last month, President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, meaning that the records could be made public within roughly 10 days.

The law requires the DOJ provide Epstein-related records to the public in a searchable format by Dec. 19.

In the order, the judge wrote that the law “does not explicitly refer to grand jury materials,” but added that it “textually covers the grand jury materials in this case.”

“The Court thus finds that modification of the Protective Order is necessary to enable DOJ to carry out its legal obligations under the Act,” he added.

“The Act unambiguously applies to the discovery in this case,” Engelmayer stated, adding that “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” are covered in relation to Maxwell, Epstein, and connected individuals.

The decision comes after Engelmayer previously denied DOJ’s bid to release the documents - when he wrote that a “public official,” “lawmaker,” “pundit,” or “ordinary citizen” concerned with the Epstein case would expect them to reveal new information, based on the government’s descriptions, and “come away feeling disappointed and misled.” Most of the material is “entirely a matter of longstanding public record,” he said at the time.

The ruling was issued days after a federal judge in Florida granted the DOJ’s request to release transcripts from a grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.

Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the DOJ to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Last week, a judge in Florida granted the department’s request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.

The Florida judge also cited the recent passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, noting that it supersedes DOJ rules and procedures around the sealing of grand jury materials. In its request, the DOJ wanted documents in a 2006–2007 Florida grand jury sex trafficking investigation into Epstein in which he ultimately pleaded guilty on lesser charges.

The records that Engelmayer unsealed pertain to the case against Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in a sex trafficking scheme involving minors.

Following the signing of the Epstein law, the DOJ also submitted a request to unseal records in a New York case against Epstein before he was arrested in 2019. He was later found dead in a New York City jail cell in August 2019 as he was awaiting federal sex trafficking charges.

Another judge in New York has not yet ruled on that request connected to the final Epstein case.

Maxwell’s attorneys, in a letter to Engelmayer, opposed the release of grand jury materials because she is aiming to seek a new trial, although they noted that Maxwell “does not take a position” in response to the request to release the files.

“Releasing the grand jury materials from her case, which contain untested and unproven allegations, would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial should Ms. Maxwell’s habeas petition succeed,” her attorneys stated in the Dec. 3 letter.

ZeroHedge contributed to this report