Ghislaine Maxwell asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her sex-trafficking conviction in a 159-page petition filed on Friday, the last day the justices would allow. She said that she should never have been prosecuted because the government agreed not to prosecute her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell, who is 63 years old, was found guilty of five counts of sex trafficking and grooming minors for Epstein’s abuse in 2021 and given a 20-year prison term. Epstein died in jail before he could go to court.
After Maxwell was found guilty, she tried to appeal but failed. She said that a 2007 plea deal between Epstein and the federal government in the Southern District of Florida protected her, even though she wasn’t a part of the deal and her case was being heard in the Southern District of New York. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, it is “well established” law that a plea deal “binds only the office of the United States Attorney for the district in which the plea is entered unless it affirmatively appears that the agreement contemplates a broader restriction.” In Maxwell’s case, there was no such indication.
At first, Maxwell had until February 23 to file an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States. However, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed the limit back to April 10 after Maxwell said she had hired a new lawyer the day before.
In Maxwell’s petition, her lawyer said the case was “the perfect vehicle” to settle a disagreement among the circuits over whether the phrase “United States” in these kinds of cases refers to the federal government in a broad sense or to prosecutors in a specific jurisdiction in a more narrow sense. It then says that a promise made in a plea deal by one group of federal prosecutors should be followed by prosecutors from a different area.
The brief said, “A defendant should be able to rely on a promise that the United States will not prosecute again, without having to deal with a gotcha in another jurisdiction that chooses to interpret that plain language promise in some other way.”
Maxwell is a British former socialite and the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a British media mogul and con artist.
As Maxwell was being tried, details about links between Maxwell, Epstein, and President Donald Trump came to light. For example, one of Maxwell’s victims said that Epstein set her up with Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was only 14. Three justices on the Court were chosen by Trump and lean conservative. They will now have the chance to decide if they want to get involved in Maxwell’s case.
David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, told Law&Crime Friday, “This is an important issue, and we hope that the Supreme Court takes the case.” “Ghislaine should never have been charged because the federal government protected her.” The idea that it only works in one place and not in another doesn’t make sense, either legally or logically.
The whole file can be read here.
