In a significant legal move, one of the most outspoken accusers of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell has called on judges to approve the Justice Department’s appeal to unseal records from their federal sex trafficking cases. Annie Farmer, through her attorney Sigrid S. McCawley, emphasized that “transparency is the key to achieving justice.”

Farmer’s statement follows a request from the judges for input from victims before deciding on whether to disclose the records. This comes under a newly enacted law that mandates the government to release its files on Epstein, the late financier, and Maxwell, his longtime associate, who were involved in the sexual abuse of young women and girls over several decades.

Farmer, alongside other victims, championed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last month by former President Donald Trump. This legislation requires the Justice Department, FBI, and federal prosecutors to disclose by December 19 the extensive materials they gathered during their investigations into Epstein.

Last week, the Justice Department petitioned Manhattan federal Judges Richard M. Berman and Paul A. Engelmayer to lift confidentiality orders on grand jury transcripts and other documents from Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case. They also requested access to a broad array of records from Maxwell’s 2021 trial, encompassing search warrants, financial documents, and interview notes from victims.

In a letter addressed to the judges, McCawley asserted, “There should be no impediments in these proceedings that would hinder their success or offer an avenue to continue concealing the notorious sex-trafficking operation’s history.”

The attorney was critical of the government for failing to prosecute anyone else in Epstein and Maxwell’s orbit.

She asked the judges to ensure that the orders they issue do not preclude the Justice Department from releasing other Epstein-related materials, adding that Farmer “is wary” that any denial could be used “as a pretext or excuse” to withhold information.

Epstein, a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims and participating in some of the abuse. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

In a court filing Wednesday, Maxwell’s lawyer again said that she is preparing a habeas petition in a bid to overturn her conviction. The lawyer, David Markus, first mentioned the habeas petition in court papers in August as she fought the Justice Department’s initial bid to have her case records unsealed. The Supreme Court in October declined to hear Maxwell’s appeal.

Markus said in Wednesday’s filing that while Maxwell now “does not take a position” in the wake of the transparency act’s passage, doing so “would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial” if her habeas petition succeeds.

The records, Markus said, “contain untested and unproven allegations.”

Berman, who presided over the Epstein case, ordered victims and Epstein’s estate to respond to the Justice Department’s unsealing request by Wednesday and gave the government until Dec. 8 to reply to those submissions. Berman said he would make his “best efforts to resolve this motion promptly.”

Engelmayer, who’s weighing whether to release records from Maxwell’s case, gave her and victims until Wednesday to respond. The government must respond by Dec. 8, he said, moving up his original Dec. 10 deadline to match Berman’s. Engelmayer said that will enable him “to render an earlier decision on this motion.”

Lawyers for Epstein’s estate said in a letter to Berman on Wednesday that the estate takes no position on the Justice Department’s unsealing request. The lawyers noted that the government had committed to making appropriate redactions of personal identifying information for victims.

Last week, a lawyer for some victims complained that the House Oversight Committee had failed to redact, or black out, some of their names from tens of thousands pages of Epstein-related documents it has released in recent months.

Transparency “CANNOT come at the expense of the privacy, safety, and protection of sexual abuse and sex trafficking victims, especially these survivors who have already suffered repeatedly,” lawyer Brad Edwards wrote.