Judge Rules for Ghislaine Maxwell in Huge Setback to Victims and Boon to Epstein Accomplices

by Colin Kalmbacher
Law & Crime
Feb. 28, 2020

A federal judge in Manhattan has denied a media request to presume that the public should have access to an infamous and long-sought trove of documents related to dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

In a terse four-page ruling, Judge Loretta Preska ruled against reporter Julie K. Brown and The Miami Herald in what’s sure to be seen as a slap in the face to the dozens of victims ensnared by Epstein’s elite pedophile ring over the course of several years.

“[Brown and the Herald‘s] argument is ostensibly that this unsealing process requires the Court to evaluate the Aristotelian essence of a document, i.e., to decide that certain documents are imbued with an inherent, free-floating power to influence judicial decision-making that makes them necessarily subject to the presumption of public access,” Preska wrote in a sharp and mocking decision.

“The Court has . . . already considered and rejected the exact contention [Brown and the Herald] advance here: that judicial documents can be categorized as such based on their abstract, generalized effect on judicial decisions rather than in the context of a decided motion,” the New York City judge continued. “That [Brown and the Herald] have found alternative dress for that position does not provide grounds for reconsideration.”

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