DOJ-OGR-00015090.jpg

Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 803 Filed 08/05/25 Page 4 of 9

be affected by disclosure are still alive; and (ix) the additional need for maintaining secrecy in the particular case in question.

In re Craig, 131 F.3d at 106. The Court noted that “all of these factors and their precise significance must be evaluated in the context of the specific case.” Id. at 107.

The timing of a request to unseal is “one of the most crucial elements” to be considered by a district court. In re Craig, 131 F.3d at 107. Here, the grand jury convened just five years ago, not decades ago. This is not a case where the “passage of time erode[d] many of the justifications for continued secrecy.” Id. Nor is it a case where time has brought about the “death of the principal parties involved in the investigations, as well as that of their immediate families.” Id. at 107. Epstein may be dead, but Maxwell is alive and litigating her case.

Maxwell’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari is pending before the Supreme Court. She is preparing a habeas petition. Disclosure of grand jury materials at this stage risks irreparably tainting the legal process by injecting sealed testimony into the public debate while judicial review is ongoing. The reputational harm from releasing incomplete, potentially misleading grand jury testimony, untested by cross-examination, would be severe and irrevocable. Those allegations, if released in raw, untested form, would inevitably influence any future legal proceeding should Maxwell succeed in her post-conviction litigation. The government’s proposal to “redact victim-identifying information” does not mitigate this harm. The substance of the allegations, not the names, creates the prejudice. Public curiosity is insufficient

MARKUS/MOSS
4

DOJ-OGR-00015090