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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 794 _ Filed 07/23/25 Page1of3
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
20 Cr, 330 (PAE)
-y- e
ORDER
GHISLAINE MAXWELL,
Defendant.
PAUL A, ENGELMAYER, District Judge:
The Court has received a motion by counsel for defendant Ghislaine Maxwell secking
access to grand jury transcripts in her case. Dkt. 793. The stated basis of that motion is to enable
Maxwell to comment on the Government’s pending motion to unseal these transcripts, Dkt. 785,
as ts which the Court has ordered expedited briefing, Dkt. 789.
The Court denies Maxwell’s motion. It is black-letter law that defendants generally are
not entitled to access to grand jury materials. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e); see also, e.g., United
States vy. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677, 682 (‘Thle] indispensable secrecy of grand jury
proceedings must not be broken except where there is a compelling necessity.” (citation
omitted)); United States v. Schlegel, 687 F. App’x 26, 30 (2d Cir. 2017) (‘Grand jury proceedings
are presumptively secret, and a defendant seeking the disclosure of grand jury materials bears a
heavy burden.”). Post-trial motions by defendants seeking such access are almost invariably
denied, for failure to make a showing of compelling necessity.'
! See, e.g., United States v. Carneglia, 675 F. App’x 84, 86 (2d Cir. 2017) (affirming denial of
defendant’s post-conviction bid to access grand jury materials where he did not show that such
was ‘“needed to avoid a possible injustice in’ any subsequent habeas proceedings” (quoting
Douglas Oil Co. of Calif. v. Petrol Stops Nw., 441 U.S. 211, 222 (1979))); United States v.
Archuleta, No. 2 Cr. 1060, 2018 WL 8646703, at *6—-7 (S.D.N_Y. July 31, 2018) (denying request
DOJ-OGR-00015055