The SearchVoat Forum

A federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday ruled on a series of redactions proposed by Ghislaine Maxwell and prosecutors regarding a compilation of transcripts submitted under seal by the government last month.

After reviewing arguments from both sides, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan allowed most of the government’s redactions to remain in place over Maxwell’s objections while also adding several additional redactions at her request.

Maxwell’s legal team in January filed 12 motions requesting that the court, among other things, dismiss all of the charges relating to her alleged role as a recruiter of young girls for infamous and since-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The government responded in February with an “omnibus memorandum of law” opposing Maxwell’s motions, all of which were filed under seal pending rulings on the redactions.

The government argued that its redactions were required in order to “protect the integrity” of its ongoing criminal investigation into Maxwell and to protect the privacy interests of third parties. Judge Nathan granted most of the government’s requests, reasoning that the redactions were based on legitimate interests to overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents.

“Exhibit 1 contains a single redaction—the name of a third party—and the Court concludes that that individual’s personal privacy interests outweigh the presumption of access that exists as to that limited portion of the exhibit,” Judge Nathan wrote. “The proposed redactions to Exhibit 7 are similar in that they seek to protect from public access only the names and contact information of third parties. Here, too, the interest in protecting the safety and privacy of those individuals outweighs the presumption of access that attaches to those documents.”

Nathan rejected Maxwell’s objection to redactions containing information “that has been made public by other means” where such information still relates to the privacy interests of third parties.

“At least some of the redactions to which the Defendant objects relate to private ‘family affairs’ of a third party, a factor that ‘weigh[s] more heavily against access than conduct affecting a substantial portion of the public.’ Nathan wrote, citing to controlling precedent from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. “And though the Defendant contends that some of the information contained in the redactions is public, she furnishes no evidence to that effect. As a result, the Court concludes that the significant privacy interests at stake justify the limited and narrowly tailored redactions contained in Exhibit 5.”

Judge Nathan did side with Maxwell on several additional redactions proposed to transcripts submitted as part of the government’s filing, finding that to make those details public would only tend to cater to an appetite for the “sensational and impure.”

“Those portions of the transcript, which were redacted in the civil matter, concern privacy interests and their disclosure would merely serve to cater to a ‘craving for that which is sensational and impure,’” she wrote. “The Court thus concludes that such redactions are justified.”

Several other redactions proposed by the government were rejected at Maxwell’s request after Judge Nathan found that prosecutors failed to provide a reasonable basis “as to why its investigation at this stage of the matter would be imperiled by the disclosure of the information regarding how it obtained the information in question, and the requested redactions are far from narrowly tailored.”

“As a result, the Court denies the Government’s redaction requests in pages 1–128 and denies its request to file Exhibits 8 and 9 under seal, since those documents relate to this very issue and the same reasoning applies to them,” Nathan wrote.


The court will allow the government to seek more tailored redactions before the redactions are removed on the public docket.

Read the full ruling below:

Before a jury of 1,300 on Sunday morning at Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El (none of them patriarchs), Attorney Alan Dershowitz defended Abraham on the charge of attempted murder of the son whom he loved, Isaac. Former New York State Governor, Eliot Spitzer, served as the prosecutor, while Alison J. Nathan, a U.S. federal district judge, presided over the case. Lunch was provided.

Judge Nathan questioned whether she had jurisdiction, but the mock trial proceeded anyway.

In pre-trial banter, Gady Levy, the executive director of Temple Emanu-EL’s Skirball Center said that this was a novel way to get over 1,000 people to study Torah on a Sunday. Trash talking Dershowitz had said, “I have an advantage over Eliot — I read Hebrew so I get the original,… Let’s see what he’s done since his bar mitzvah.” Actually, Spitzer, a member of Temple Emanu-El never had a bar mitzvah (ceremony) as a teen.

Spitzer, a former Attorney General for the State of New York, quoted from a book by his former Harvard Law School Professor (Alan Dershowitz) that a present day Abraham would be convicted of attempted murder. Spitzer also maligned a “voice of God” defense strategy, making light of people who hear voices. He brought up the criminal count of child endangerment and showed that Abraham had a history of child abuse, having expelled his son Ishmael along with Hagar.

Dershowitz, the opera fan who is famous for helping to get O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow off, asked for a change in venue. He said that the Orthodox Park East Synagogue was a better place for this trial than the Reform Emanu-El. Ouch. Playing the religion card, it appears that he will do anything for a client. He asked that the charge of child endangerment be dropped. Why? Because Isaac was not really a minor; he was an adult. He also asserted that this was just a test. Abraham himself dropped the knife and never intended to kill Isaac.

Neither side tried to call an angel or a ram as a witness to the events.

The results:

On the count of endangering the welfare of a child: Not guilty (748 to 529 juror votes)
On the count of attempted murder: Not guilty (687 to 590)

Dershowitz once again prevailed.