Judge declines to unseal grand jury material in Jeffrey Epstein case
Source: CBS News
August 20, 2025 / 2:03 PM EDT
Washington -- A federal judge in New York on Wednesday declined the federal government's request to unseal grand jury material in the case of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying prosecutors had failed to demonstrate that "special circumstances" warranted their disclosure. Judge Richard Berman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued his ruling in a 14-page decision denying the government's motion to unseal the documents.
Berman wrote that the grand jury material in question includes the testimony of just a single witness, an FBI agent "who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay." The documents the government was seeking to unseal included roughly 70 pages of transcripts of the agent's two presentations to the grand jury, a PowerPoint exhibit and a call log.
Berman noted that the Justice Department's files on Epstein dwarf those stemming from the grand jury. Proceedings before grand juries are typically kept secret. "A significant and compelling reason to reject the Government's position in this litigation is that the Government has already undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the Epstein case and, not surprisingly, has assembled a 'trove' of Epstein documents, interviews, and exhibits. And, the Government committed that it would share its Epstein investigation materials with the public," Berman wrote.
"The Government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein Files. 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," Berman wrote, quoting a decision by another judge in New York who denied the government's move to unseal material in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-grand-jury-judge/
Link to RULING (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.518649/gov.uscourts.nysd.518649.77.0.pdf
NOTE: I was thinking... didn't a judge already do that? But THAT (last week) was related to a denial to release Maxwell's grand jury stuff - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143510946
Article updated.
Original article -
Washington -- A federal judge in New York on Wednesday declined the federal government's request to unseal grand jury material in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in federal custody in 2019.
Judge Richard Berman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued his ruling in a 14-page decision. Berman ruled that the Justice Department failed to demonstrate a "special circumstance" that would warrant the disclosure of grand jury transcripts and exhibits. Proceedings before grand juries are typically kept secret.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Another court points out that the attempt to release grand jury material is nothing but a stunt and diversion
Another federal court calls out Government request to release grand jury transcripts as a "diversion."
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) 2025-08-20T18:14:05.365Z
"The Government's 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials."
Real transparency: DOJ can release the Epstein files.
