Ghislaine Maxwell case back in court as she appeals 2021 sex trafficking conviction
Maxwell, 62, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars last year, after being found guilty of five counts of trafficking and abusing young girls over decades
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Ghislaine Maxwell should have been protected by “immunity provisions” from a previous non-prosecution agreement in Florida, her attorneys have argued.
The disgraced British socialite, 62, returned to the spotlight this week as lawyers launched an appeal over her 2021 sex trafficking conviction.
During an appeal hearing in New York federal court on Tuesday, Diana Fabi Samson – representing Maxwell – referenced the 2008 non prosecution agreement, made by state prosecutors with late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in Florida.
Ms Samson said not honouring the terms of the agreement would “strike a dagger in the heart of the trust between the government and its citizens.”
“In the end, Ms. Maxwell was prosecuted for crimes that she as a third party beneficiary to the plea agreement in Florida should not have been prosecuted,” Ms Samson said.
Maxwell’s attorneys had previously argued that a juror failed to disclose that they were a sexual abuse victim.
It was a 2021 interview journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley conducted with the juror Scotty David published in The Independent in the weeks following the Maxwell sex-trafficking verdict that led her legal team to appeal on this matter.
One of Maxwell’s attorneys, Arthur Aidala addressed the issue of an “impartial juror” outside court saying that the failure of Mr David to disclose he had been the victim of sexual assault was “wrong” and that the juror had “totally misrepresented the truth”.
“That is absolutely verboten. It’s wrong. And although the judge had a hearing, and he acknowledged he wasn’t accurate at all she said, ‘well, I think he made an honest mistake by not checking off that box so I’m going to let the verdict stand’,” he said.
Mr Aidala said the case should be “dismissed”, adding: “If we allow the government to make deals with the citizens with us, and then they decide, for whatever reason, they’re going to rip up that room and rip up that deal, that handshake means nothing.”
Maxwell was not present in the courtroom for Tuesday’s hearing, but was reportedly listening remotely from her jail cell in Florida.
She was convicted in 2021 of five counts of trafficking and abusing young girls over decades with Epstein. She was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in June 2022.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s case to return to court this week
Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell returns to the spotlight this week as lawyers launch an appeal over her conviction for sex trafficking in 2021 is due to begin this week.
Maxwell, 62, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars last year, after being found guilty of five counts of trafficking and abusing young girls over decades with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Her appeal, which is taking place at a federal court in New York, is set to begin on Tuesday.
Follow the updates from The Independent here:
Ghislaine Maxwell appeal over 2021 sex trafficking conviction to begin in New York
Ghislaine Maxwell appeal over 2021 sex trafficking conviction to begin in New York
Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell returns to the spotlight this week as lawyers launch an appeal over her conviction for sex trafficking in 2021 is due to begin this week.
Maxwell, 62, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars last year, after being found guilty of five counts of trafficking and abusing young girls over decades with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Read the full story here:
Ghislaine Maxwell appeal over 2021 sex trafficking conviction to begin in New York
British-born socialite, 62, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars last year after being found guilty of five counts of trafficking and abusing young girls over decade
Ghislaine Maxwell’s former personal assistant settles Jeffrey Epstein libel claim
Last month, a former personal assistant of Ghislaine Maxwell settled a High Court libel case in the UK after a journalist linked her to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of a teenage girl in a book.
Emmy Tayler took legal action against international publisher Harper Collins over a passage from the book Perversion Of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, written by Julie K Brown and published in the UK in July 2021.
Read the full story here:
Ghislaine Maxwell’s former personal assistant settles Jeffrey Epstein libel claim
A former personal assistant of Ghislaine Maxwell has settled a High Court libel case after a journalist linked her to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of a teenage girl in a book.
Watch: Most damning moments from Ghislaine Maxwell’s TalkTV interview
Photos of Ghislaine Maxwell on Epstein’s ‘paedophile island’ resurface in new documents
Photos of Ghislaine Maxwell on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island emerged in a trove of documents relating to the late convicted paedophile unsealed earlier this year in New York.
Thousands of pages were unsealed in January following a decision by Judge Loretta Preska in December to unseal filings in the now-settled litigation between Maxwell and Virginia Giuffre.
Read the full story here:
Photos of Ghislaine Maxwell on Epstein’s ‘paedophile island’ resurface in new filings
The photos were introduced by Virginia Giuffre’s attorneys as proof of Maxwell’s ‘involvement in the sex trafficking and abuse’
Ghislaine Maxwell took child sex offender Epstein to England ‘to meet royalty’
Ghislaine Maxwell took the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to England to introduce him to Prince Andrew and other royalty, according to court documents that were unsealed earlier this year.
The never-before-seen allegation, made by Alfredo Rodriguez, the manager of Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, casts doubt on Maxwell’s repeated claim that she did not introduce the paedophile to Prince Andrew.
Read the full story here:
Ghislaine Maxwell took child sex offender Epstein to England ‘to meet royalty’
Unsealed documents allege that Ghislaine Maxwell took child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to England to meet royalty
The Independent interview that set Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal in motion
In the days following Ghislaine Maxwell‘s conviction for sex trafficking, the journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley interviewed one of the jurors who had put Maxwell behind bars.
What neither of them knew was that this interview, published by The Independent in January 2022, would help trigger an appeal by Maxwell’s legal team that could ultimately lead to her trial being overturned.
That is certainly what Maxwell will be hoping when she returns to federal court in New York on Tuesday to appeal her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking and abusing young girls in concert with late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Read on...
The Independent interview that set Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal in motion
Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is attempting to overturn her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking, based in part on information first reported by The Independent
Jeffrey Epstein: How did the disgraced paedophile financier die?
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is set to appeal her 20-year jail sentence for sex trafficking. She was convicted as an accomplice to her former boyfriend – disgraced financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
More than four years after the Epstein died by suicide in his prison cell, a New York District judge announced the unsealing of a trove of documents revealing the names of more than 150 of his associates.
The Independent’s Josh Marcus examines the circumstances around Epstein’s death here:
What happened to paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein?
Epstein died in 2019 inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York - five years later and secret files about his associates have been made public