New York judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell-related grand jury records

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday granted a Justice Department request to release grand jury material related to Ghislaine Maxwell’s case.

Judge Paul Engelmayer said in his ruling Tuesday that he’s taken great care to “put in place a mechanism to protect victims from the inadvertent release of materials within the discovery in this case that would identify them or otherwise invade their privacy.”

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of federal sex trafficking charges. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Tuesday’s ruling comes days after a federal judge in Florida also ordered the release of grand jury investigations into Jeffrey Epstein from 2005 and 2007. Both rulings came after Congress passed a law last month ordering the Justice Department to release all of its records related to Epstein.

Another judge has yet to rule in a separate request to unseal grand jury records in New York related to Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

NBC News reached out to Maxwell’s attorney for comment.

Last week, Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a filing that Maxwell “does not take a position” on the Justice Department’s request to unseal the material, but argued that releasing the material “would create undue prejudice” and prevent “the possibility of a fair retrial.”