The family of Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate and the only convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, has insisted that she was denied a fair trial, with her legal team now appealing her 2020 conviction for sex trafficking. The family’s statement, released Tuesday, emphasized that Maxwell should not have been prosecuted under the terms of a prior plea deal with Epstein, which was reached in 2007. The plea agreement had included an understanding that co-conspirators of Epstein would not be prosecuted.
Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence at FCI Tallahassee, is also seeking to challenge the legality of her imprisonment by filing a writ of habeas corpus in the Southern District of New York. This would allow her to argue that the government may have acted with misconduct that could have changed the outcome of her trial. Her legal team believes that the plea deal’s promise to protect co-conspirators was broken and that the government’s decision to prosecute her represents a violation of that agreement.
Lower courts have rejected this argument, leading the family to now petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a review of the case. David Oscar Marcus, one of Maxwell’s attorneys, expressed surprise if former President Donald Trump were aware of the legal maneuver, noting that Trump, as a seasoned dealmaker, would likely value the government keeping its word. If these appeals fail, Maxwell is set for release in July 2037.
The controversy has intensified with new revelations about Epstein’s case. While the government recently announced that Epstein did not maintain an incriminating client list, Maxwell’s supporters argue that this is unfair, as it leaves her in prison based on a promise the government allegedly broke. Epstein died in 2019, after being arrested on additional federal sex trafficking charges, but his family and some skeptics have challenged the official conclusion of his death as suicide by hanging in jail.
Last year, a federal judge ordered the unsealing of thousands of pages from a civil case brought by Epstein and Maxwell victim Virginia Giuffre, which linked several prominent figures to Epstein. However, most of these individuals were not accused of wrongdoing, and many had previously been connected to Epstein. Giuffre, Epstein’s most outspoken accuser, died of suicide in Australia earlier this year.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department and FBI released a joint memo on the completion of a review of Epstein’s case files, which revealed little new information. The documents, they stated, mostly concerned minors and victims who appear to be minors, with over 10,000 videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material, which would not be released. Despite the government’s public release of surveillance footage supporting the conclusion that Epstein died by suicide, there are still unanswered questions, including a missing window in the cell due to a systemic flaw.