A judge in Palm Beach County has made public the grand jury records from the 2008 Jeffrey Epstein criminal case.
The records had been sealed for 16 years, the Miami Herald reported.
On Monday afternoon, a Florida judge released transcripts from a grand jury investigation into allegations of sex trafficking and rape involving Jeffrey Epstein, the late millionaire financier.
In his order, Judge Delgado referred to Epstein as “the most infamous pedophile in American history.”
“For almost 20 years, the story of how Jeffrey Epstein victimized some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has been the subject of much anger and has at times diminished the public’s perception of the criminal justice system,” Delgado said.
The judge had initially planned a hearing for next week to determine the timing and method of release. Governor Ron DeSantis had previously signed a bill in February authorizing the release on Monday or at any time designated by Circuit Judge Luis Delgado, US News reported.
The records span nearly 200 pages and include testimony from at least one victim who was molested by Epstein. He was a New York financier who allegedly assaulted underage girls at his Palm Beach mansion for decades.
Epstein managed to avoid serious charges, partly because the Palm Beach prosecutor at the time, Barry Krischer, chose to charge him with minor prostitution offenses instead of pursuing a felony sexual assault case.
Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an order to release the files by July 1. Epstein’s case gained renewed attention in 2018, a decade after the fact, following investigative articles by the Miami Herald revealing secret negotiations that resulted in a lenient jail sentence for Epstein.
He served only 13 months in Palm Beach County jail, where he enjoyed generous privileges to work in his outside office and at his mansion.
In 2019, he was arrested again on sex trafficking charges in New York and was found dead in his cell a month later, his death ruled a suicide by hanging. His associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was subsequently charged and convicted of sex trafficking in 2020. Maxwell, a British socialite with longstanding ties to Epstein, is currently appealing her sentence.
