Washington — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday declined the federal government's request to unseal grand jury material in the case of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying prosecutors had failed to demonstrate that "special circumstances" warranted their disclosure.

Judge Richard Berman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued his ruling in a 14-page decision denying the government's motion to unseal the documents.

Berman wrote that the grand jury material in question includes the testimony of just a single witness, an FBI agent "who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay." The documents the government was seeking to unseal included roughly 70 pages of transcripts of the agent's two presentation

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