The U.S. government on Aug. 11 suffered a setback in obtaining grand jury transcripts and exhibits in the Ghislaine Maxwell case after a judge said he would not be releasing them for the public to see and maintaining there was nothing new.
“There is no ‘there’ there,” said District Judge Paul Engelmayer in an order after he reviewed the transcripts and exhibits from two grand juries in the Maxwell case.
Maxwell was indicted on seven charges, including two for perjury and five regarding sex trafficking of minors with Jeffrey Epstein. She was convicted of six felonies in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison the next year.
The only chance left for the government to obtain transcripts lies with District Judge Richard Berman, who presides over Epstein’s criminal case. He has not ruled.
The Department of Justice began seeking the grand jury materials after it announced on July 7 that it had reviewed its own evidence and would be releasing nothing further. President Donald Trump, who had made transparency regarding Epstein a campaign issue, suddenly was caught in a political whirlwind that shows no sign of abating.
Maxwell case judge says material was not ‘significant, undisclosed’
Engelmayer presides over Maxwell’s case.
He maintains that the bulk of the material is already public and that it belies the government’s claims that they “contain significant, undisclosed information about Maxwell’s and Epstein’s crimes.”
During the first proceeding only an FBI agent testified for not even two hours and in the second, a New York police detective did the same. Both only summarized the evidence. No survivors testified.
District Judge Robin Rosenberg on July 23 denied the government’s efforts to obtain material from a 2006-’08 federal investigation of Epstein, which occurred when the Palm Beach police chief had concerns over how then-Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer was prosecuting the case.
2006 Palm Beach County grand jury transcripts released in 2024
The transcripts of the 2006 Jeffrey Epstein grand jury that resulted in only one solicitation of prostitution charge against him are below.
On the day The Post published an investigation into Krischer’s prosecution in November 2019, the newspaper sued to lift the veil of secrecy for the public and for the survivors.
The following document comprises the details about what went on behind closed doors.
Hear Palm Beach Post Investigations Editor Holly Baltz discuss what the transcripts reveal (at 8:10):
Holly Baltz is an editor at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hbaltz@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Here are the only Jeffrey Epstein grand jury transcripts ever released. Read for yourself
Reporting by Holly Baltz, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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