Ghislaine Maxwell seeks to overturn sex trafficking conviction

[March 12, 2024]  By Jonathan Stempel
 
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell will on Tuesday ask a U.S. appeals court to overturn the British socialite's conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.  

Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell sits as the guilty verdict in her sex abuse trial is read in a courtroom sketch in New York City, U.S., December 29, 2021. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg/File Photo

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan is expected to hear oral arguments in Maxwell's appeal at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT).

Maxwell, 62, was convicted in December 2021 on five charges for having recruited and groomed four underage girls for Epstein, once her boyfriend, to abuse between 1994 and 2004.

The court is not expected to rule immediately.

Epstein died by suicide in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail, a little over a month after being arrested and also charged with sex trafficking.

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.

The scandal has also stained or destroyed the reputations of former friends like Britain's Prince Andrew and onetime Barclays CEO Jes Staley.

Maxwell is the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell.

In her appeal, Maxwell's lawyers said prosecutors scapegoated her because Epstein was dead and "public outrage" demanded that prosecutors pin blame somewhere.

The lawyers also said the government waited too long to bring charges, and that Maxwell was immune under a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida.

In addition, Maxwell's lawyers said the trial was tainted because one juror failed to disclose he had been sexually abused as a child.

Prosecutors believe the appeal is meritless.

They have cited Circuit Judge Alison Nathan's findings that Maxwell had done "incalculable" damage to her victims, and that a substantial sentence would show people who sexually abuse and traffic underage victims that "nobody is above the law."

Nathan was elevated to the appeals court after being assigned Maxwell's criminal case when she was a district judge. She has no role in the appeal.

Maxwell is housed in a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida. She is eligible for release in July 2037.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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