Supreme Court rejects Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Ghislaine Maxwell's bid to overturn her conviction for aiding Jeffrey Epstein in the sexual abuse of underage girls. Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence, argued that Epstein's non-prosecution agreement should shield her from one charge. Her legal team vows to continue the fight despite the ruling.
On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her 2021 conviction on charges related to her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls. Maxwell was found guilty on three counts, including sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor, and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence handed down in June 2022.
In the appeal, Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Markus, argued that Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of Florida—which protected him and potential co-conspirators from federal charges—should extend to one of Maxwell’s counts prosecuted in New York. The Justice Department countered that then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta would have required authorization from superiors to apply the agreement beyond Florida, and no such evidence exists. Solicitor General D. John Sauer described Maxwell’s argument as “incorrect,” stating she failed to demonstrate it would succeed in any court of appeals, according to The New York Times.
Despite the setback, Markus told NBC News that “this fight isn’t over.” Maxwell has pursued multiple avenues to reduce her sentence, including an appeal to President Donald Trump. Her team urged Trump to recognize the “profoundly unjust” scapegoating of Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes. Trump responded in late July, saying, “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon but nobody’s approached me with it, nobody’s asked me about it,” and added, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”
Shortly after petitioning the Supreme Court, Maxwell was interviewed in July by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former Trump attorney, about Epstein and his associates. She denied witnessing inappropriate behavior by high-profile figures like Trump and former President Bill Clinton, stating of Trump: “I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.” One week later, Maxwell was transferred from a Florida federal prison to a minimum-security facility in Texas.