A federal judge in New York has ruled the US Department of Justice can publicly release grand jury materials from Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking investigation. According to the BBC, the US District Judge Paul Engelmayer said he was ordering the release of material because of a recent law passed by Congress.

The law requires the Justice Department to publish files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by the end of next week. In his ruling, he said the court would put in place mechanisms to protect victims from the release of materials that would “identify them or otherwise invade their privacy”.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 for her role in luring underage girls for Epstein, her former boyfriend, to exploit. Epstein died in prison in 2019. US judge orders unsealing of court records from abandoned Jeffrey Epstein case. Prosecutors argued Maxwell recruited and groomed girls, some as young as 14, between 1994 and 2004, before they were abused by Epstein.

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, was moved from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas in August, after she was interviewed by Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche about Epstein.