U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg denied the DOJ’s efforts to unseal grand jury testimonies regarding Jeffrey Epstein and transfer the petition to the Southern District of New York.
“For the reasons set forth below, Eleventh Circuit law does not permit this Court to grant the Government’s request; the Court’s hands are tied—a point that the Government concedes,” Rosenberg wrote.
The request to send it to Manhattan is because the DOJ asked the court to unseal testimonies in Manhattan connected to Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The judge in that motion informed the DOJ that he needed additional information and documents before making a ruling.
The DOJ sought out grand jury testimonies from 2005 and 2007 in West Palm Beach, FL, arguing that a rule no longer applied because of Epstein’s death and the intense public interest in the documents.
“Contrary to the Government’s stated basis and the Second and Seventh Circuits,’ the Eleventh Circuit has directly held that a district court ‘do[es] not possess the … power to order the release of grand jury records in instances not covered by” Rule 6(e)(3)(E),'” said Rosenberg. “’District courts may only authorize the disclosure of grand jury materials if one of the five exceptions Hsted in Rule 6(e}G)(E) applies.’”
These are the five exceptions:
(i) preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding;(ii) at the request of a defendant who shows that a ground may exist to dismiss the indictment because of a matter that occurred before the grand jury;(iii) at the request of the government, when sought by a foreign court or prosecutor for use in an official criminal investigation;(iv) at the request of the government if it shows that the matter may disclose a violation of State, Indian tribal, or foreign criminal law, as long as the disclosure is to an appropriate state, state-subdivision, Indian tribal, or foreign government official for the purpose of enforcing that law; or(v) at the request of the government if it shows that the matter may disclose a violation of military criminal law under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as long as the disclosure is to an appropriate military official for the purpose of enforcing that law.
The grand jury documents in Florida are only testimonies. The documents in New York are indictments.
Epstein never faced federal charges in Florida because of his death in a New York jail.
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