An appeals court in the US has denied disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to have her previously rejected appeal against her conviction for sex trafficking reconsidered.
Court documents show Maxwell filed a request to judges on the second circuit in the southern district of New York for a “panel rehearing” – requesting the court reconsider its decision.
The 62-year-old was found guilty in December 2021 of luring young girls to massage rooms for paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein to molest between 1994 and 2004. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the federal court in the southern district of New York (SDNY) in June 2022.
Her appeal was rejected in September, with three judges – Jose Cabranes, Richard Wesley and Raymond Lohier Jr – ruling that she was not the subject of an unfair trial. Maxwell’s lawyers previously argued that she “should never have been prosecuted” because of a “weird” agreement drafted more than 15 years ago.
The judges dismissed her arguments, concluding that the non-prosecution agreement drafted in Florida “does not bind” the United States Attorney’s Office for SDNY. September’s judgment also dismissed Maxwell’s claims that she did not have a fair trial after it emerged one of the jurors, Scotty David, failed to disclose he had been sexually abused in his pre-trial questionnaire.
{{/usCountry}}The judges dismissed her arguments, concluding that the non-prosecution agreement drafted in Florida “does not bind” the United States Attorney’s Office for SDNY. September’s judgment also dismissed Maxwell’s claims that she did not have a fair trial after it emerged one of the jurors, Scotty David, failed to disclose he had been sexually abused in his pre-trial questionnaire.
{{/usCountry}}During her three-week trial, jurors heard prosecutors describe Maxwell as “dangerous”, and were told details of how she helped entice vulnerable teenagers to Epstein’s various properties for him to sexually abuse.
Maxwell has been incarcerated since July 2020, despite numerous attempts from her defence counsel to have her released on bail. Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. The death was ruled a suicide.