Ghislaine Maxwell’s desperate appeal of her sex trafficking conviction was rejected Tuesday by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
Maxwell, 62, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein recruit young women and underage girls for sexual abuse under the guise of massages and financial support.
The former British socialite attempted to get her conviction tossed by claiming she was covered by a sweetheart deal Epstein received in 2007 from federal prosecutors in South Florida.
However, the 2nd Circuit justices voted 3-0 to reject that argument. They said the deal only shielded Epstein and his co-conspirators from prosecution in South Florida and did not cover the federal case in New York.
“The central promise in the nonprosecution agreement is a promise by the Southern District of Florida not to prosecute Epstein in that district,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Rohrbach argued in March, when Maxwell filed her appeal. “It says nothing about the national scope.”
2021.12.07 Government Exhibits in Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein trial
Epstein died by suicide at age 66 in August 2019 inside a cell at Manhattan’s notorious and now-closed Metropolitan Correctional Center. He was awaiting trial in New York on numerous sex trafficking charges.
From 1994 to 2004, Maxwell recruited girls as young as 14 to visit Epstein’s various houses across the country, where they were raped and sexually assaulted. She reportedly introduced Britain’s Prince Andrew to Epstein.
After Epstein’s death, Maxwell was tried in 2021 and convicted on five counts related to her enticement and transportation of teen girls in the scheme. In 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years behind bars, which she is currently serving at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Fla. She will be eligible for release in 2037.
Though dozens of girls and women accused Epstein and others of abusing them — and Maxwell of facilitating that abuse — only a few allegations were heard at Maxwell’s trial.
Epstein and Maxwell’s long list of famous friends, including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, were not a focus of the trial.
With News Wire Services