Judge declines to unseal Epstein grand jury docs

NEW YORK — A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's request to unseal grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case, joining two other judges in denying the public release of material from investigations into the late financier's decadeslong sexual abuse of young women and girls.

Judge Richard Berman, who presided over the 2019 case, ruled a week after another Manhattan federal judge turned down the government's request to release transcripts from the grand jury that indicted Epstein's longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell.

Barring reversal on appeal, Berman's decision appears to foreclose the possibility of courts releasing Epstein-related grand jury testimony.

Each judge cited longstanding grand jury secrecy rules and concluded that the gov