Ghislaine Maxwell Grand Jury Materials to stay sealed, judge the rules

An American judge ruled that the documents of the Grand Jury in the sex traffic case of Ghislaine Maxwell will remain sealed, saying that making them public “would not reveal new information on any consequences”.

The Ministry of Justice had asked judge Paul Engelmayer to descend the documents, in order to ensure the anger of the supporters of President Donald Trump on the decision not to publish all the federal files on the Maxwell partner, the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, currently serving a 20 -year prison sentence for crimes related to Epstein, have opposed not having obtained the equipment.

The judge wrote that it was important to protect the secrecy of the great juries, which decide to indirect if they should instill people accused of crimes.

There are special circumstances where this secret is broken, wrote the judge Engelmayer in his 31 pages decision.

But he wrote that “the application of the exception with casualness or in a promise manner, because the government’s request to a question the testimony of the great summary jury of the Grand Jury” invites “to the system of the Grand Jury. He could, wrote, have created a precedent where people do not believe that the procedure will remain secret, which could discourage witnesses to testify and judge the case.

He rejected the government’s argument according to which a large part of the information provided to the Grand Jury was made public during his trial, although he agreed that “a member of the familiar public with the maxwell trial which examined the equipment of the Grand Jury … would therefore learn almost nothing new”.

The documents “do not identify anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor” and “do not discuss or do not identify any customer of Epstein or Maxwell,” he wrote.

Maxwell, 63, was sentenced in December 2019 and was recently transferred from a Florida prison to a new minimum security center in Texas.

Last week, one of its accusers said outside the New York court that she should stay in prison for the rest of her life.

The BBC contacted Maxwell lawyers to comment.

Last month, she was interviewed by officials of the Ministry of Justice under the Trump administration directive to collect and publish credible evidence concerning the Epstein affair.

On the campaign track, Trump undertook to release what is called “Epstein files”. But this summer, the Ministry of Justice and the FBI declared that it had concluded that Epstein had not kept a “list of customers” and that the Ministry of Justice would not make additional files public.

In response to the reaction, Trump said that Bondi should release “everything she thinks is credible”. Meanwhile, a Congress Committee sent an assignment to the Ministry of Justice linked to federal surveys on allegations against Epstein and Maxwell, which go back to 20 years.

The president, who was friends with Epstein, denied prior knowledge of Epstein crimes and said that he and the financier, who died in police custody awaiting trials, fell in the early 2000s.