Second federal judge blocks Justice Department bid to release Jeffrey Epstein grand jury files

A second federal judge has denied a motion from the Justice Department to release grand jury materials connected to the Jeffrey Epstein case, calling them a “diversion.”

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman denied the request in a 14-page decision published Wednesday.

While it’s rare for the government to seek the unsealing of grand jury materials, Berman wrote that there were about 70 pages of Epstein grand jury materials – compared to 100,000 pages in possession of the government.

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“The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files,” he wrote. “By comparison, the instant grand jury motion appears to be a ‘diversion’ from the breadth and scope of the Epstein Files in the Government’s possession.”

While the materials themselves remain sealed, Berman described them as a 56-page transcript of an FBI agent’s presentation on June 18, 2019, a 14-page transcript of the agent’s presentation on July 2, a PowerPoint exhibit and a call log.

Read Judge Berman’s decision:

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The judge also voiced safety concerns raised by a group of victims’ rights lawyers who objected to the release of anything that could expose the identities of the victims. While 23 victims addressed the court after Epstein’s death in 2019, there are more than 1,000 of them in all, Berman wrote, citing a joint Justice Department/FBI memo released earlier this year.

“It is difficult to know exactly how many victims favor unsealing and how many favor continued sealing,” the judge continued. “It is likely that victims who favor disclosure do so on the assumption that their safety, privacy and dignity will be protected.”

While Epstein is not alive to oppose the unsealing, and his estate took no position on the matter, Berman wrote that public interest in the case is nevertheless not enough to justify unsealing the grand jury materials.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer denied a similar request in the case against Epstein’s convicted accomplice and former lover, Ghislaine Maxwell, on Aug. 11.

In the earlier decision, Engelmayer wrote that the grand jury in Maxwell’s case was not empaneled as part of the investigation – but afterward – and as a result there was no firsthand witness testimony. Berman also used this line of reasoning, noting that not a single victim testified before grand jurors in Epstein’s case.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted at trial in 2021 of helping Epstein traffic teen girls. She has an ongoing appeal and has signaled that she is willing to sit for interviews with both federal prosecutors and Congress.

Epstein died in a federal jail cell in 2019 before he faced trial himself. His official cause of death has been ruled a suicide, a conclusion rejected by his brother.