(NEW YORK) — Ghislaine Maxwell asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to overturn her sex-trafficking conviction, arguing she was covered by a non-prosecution agreement the government made with her former paramour, Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. She was convicted on five counts of aiding Epstein in his abuse of underage girls in December 2021.
A federal appeals court rejected her argument that Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement, arranged in 2007, barred her prosecution in New York. She urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider her case.
“Despite the existence of a non-prosecution agreement promising in plain language that the United States would not prosecute any co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein, the United States in fact prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell as a co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein,” her attorneys wrote in their petition.
Maxwell said the US Supreme Court should resolve differences of opinion among federal appeals court as to whether a non-prosecution arranged in one district can be enforced in another.
“A defendant should be able to rely on a promise that the United States will not prosecute again, without being subject to a gotcha in some other jurisdiction that chooses to interpret that plain language promise in some other way,” defense attorney David Markus wrote.
Four women testified at trial they had been abused as minors at Epstein’s homes in Florida, New York, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands and said Maxwell, the daughter of British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell, had talked them into giving Epstein massages that turned sexual. They testified they were lured with gifts and promises about how Epstein could use his money and connections to help them.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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