NEW YORK — Defense attorneys representing convicted British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell are mounting a legal challenge to prevent the public disclosure of approximately 90,000 pages of documents tied to the late Jeffrey Epstein scandal, arguing that federal legislation requiring their release is unconstitutional.
The legal team submitted court filings on Friday evening in Manhattan federal court, seeking to prevent the unsealing of materials from a civil defamation case that Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who has since died, filed against Maxwell ten years ago. Federal prosecutors recently petitioned a judge to remove confidentiality protections from these files.
According to Maxwell’s defense team, federal investigators improperly acquired these materials—which were previously protected under court secrecy orders—while conducting their criminal investigation of Maxwell. The attorneys stated that the documentation contains deposition transcripts from more than 30 individuals, along with private financial and intimate details concerning Maxwell and other parties.
Certain materials from the year-long discovery process in the civil litigation have already been made available to the public following a federal appellate court directive.
Maxwell’s legal representatives contend that the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress enacted in December to mandate the release of millions of Epstein-connected documents, breaches the Constitution’s separation of powers principle.
Attorneys Laura Menninger and Jeffrey Pagliuca stated in their filing: “Congress cannot, by statute, strip this Court of the power or relieve it of the responsibility to protect its files from misuse. To do so violates the separation of powers.”
The lawyers further argued: “Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch may intrude on the judicial power. That power includes the power to definitively and finally resolve cases and disputes.”
The ongoing release of Epstein-connected materials from criminal investigations, which commenced several weeks ago, has produced fresh details about Epstein’s systematic sexual exploitation of women and minors spanning multiple decades. Several survivors have expressed frustration that their identities and personal details were exposed in the documents while the names of perpetrators remained redacted.
Congressional representatives have criticized that approximately half of available documents, many heavily redacted, have been disclosed publicly, despite Justice Department assertions that all releasable materials have been provided, with some files awaiting judicial approval for publication.
Giuffre alleged that Epstein forced her into sexual encounters with other men, including former Prince Andrew, now called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. She initiated legal action against Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021, alleging sexual contact when she was 17 years old.
Mountbatten-Windsor disputed her allegations, and both parties reached a settlement agreement in 2022. Recently, he was detained for nearly 11 hours on allegations of improperly sharing confidential business information with Epstein.
In posthumously published memoirs following her suicide last year, Giuffre revealed that prosecutors informed her they excluded her from Maxwell’s sex trafficking case to prevent her accusations from diverting jury attention.
Maxwell, age 64, received a guilty verdict in December 2021 and was sentenced to two decades in federal prison. Epstein died by suicide in federal detention in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was transferred from a Florida federal facility to a minimum-security prison facility in Texas last summer following two days of interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Two weeks prior, she refused to respond to questions from House Oversight Committee members during a video deposition from her prison facility, though her attorney indicated she was “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if granted executive clemency.
The Justice Department has not yet provided a response to requests for comment regarding the matter.
