Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal against sex trafficking convictions rejected

British socialite has been serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal against convictions for helping the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls has been rejected by a US court.
The British socialite, 62, has been serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2021 on five charges for having recruited and groomed four underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.
The decision to reject her appeal was issued by the Manhattan-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.
Epstein was once Maxwell’s boyfriend. The financier died by suicide at the age of 66 in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, five weeks after being arrested and charged with sex trafficking.
Maxwell’s appeal focused in significant part on a legal argument related to a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in southern Florida, which she said barred her from being prosecuted in Manhattan 13 years later.
Her lawyer argued that references in Epstein’s agreement to the “United States” signalled the government’s intent to bar prosecutions nationwide of “potential co-conspirators”, including four named in the agreement. Maxwell was not among them.
A prosecutor countered that the mention of the United States was a throwaway reference, and Epstein’s agreement was intended to bind only prosecutors in southern Florida.
In addition, Maxwell argued in her appeal that prosecutors scapegoated her because Epstein was dead and the public demanded that someone else be held accountable. She also said her trial was tainted because one juror did not disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child.
Writing for the three-judge panel, Jose Cabranes, the circuit judge, found “no errors” in Maxwell’s original convictions and found the punishment to be reasonable.
He cited the trial judge’s assessment that the sentence reflected Maxwell’s “pivotal role in facilitating the abuse of the underaged girls through a series of deceptive tactics” and the “significant and lasting harm it inflicted”.
A lawyer for Maxwell suggested she will appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.
“We are obviously very disappointed by the court’s decision and we vehemently disagree with the outcome,” Arthur Aidala, Maxwell’s lawyer, said in a statement.
“We are cautiously optimistic that Ghislaine will get the justice she deserves from the Supreme Court of the United States.”
In 2008, Epstein ultimately pleaded guilty to a Florida state prosecution charge and served 13 months in jail, an arrangement now widely considered too lenient.
His victims have since recouped hundreds of millions of dollars from his estate and from banks accused of handling transactions that financed his sexual misconduct.
Maxwell has been serving her sentence in a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida. She is eligible for release in July 2037.