With hundreds of documents and transcripts released overnight involving a 2015 lawsuit against her for defamation, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell got a reprieve of sorts Friday when a circuit court agreed to hear her appeal of a district court’s ruling ordering the release of two depositions in that case, one by Maxwell and one by someone known only as J. Doe 1.
The depositions were expected to be released Monday, but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed to hear Maxwell’s appeal of the ruling by US District Court Judge Loretta Preska. The court will hear the appeal on September 22, the Miami Herald reported.
The depositions were made in Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit accusing Maxwell of defamation. The suit was settled two years later for an undisclosed amount, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
On Thursday night, other documents from the lawsuit, including emails between Maxwell and Epstein, were unsealed and began trickling out. Already tales of non-stop orgies and Maxwell and Epstein ordering young girls to have sex with famous men have reached the light of day. But Maxwell, now in federal detention after her July 2 arrest in New Hampshire on sex trafficking and perjury charges, was keen to block her deposition, claiming Giuffre had improperly given the document to federal prosecutors.
Giuffre’s attorneys said in a filing on Friday that accusation is “completely and utterly false.”
Herald attorneys made a filing in the case on Friday as well, since the entire document release stems from a pleading the paper made on behalf of investigative reporter Julie K. Brown. Brown’s November 2018 series “Perversion of Justice” detailed how former US Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, then a US Attorney in south Florida, brokered a sweetheart deal that allowed Epstein to escape any serious consequences of a conviction for procuring a young girl for prostitution.
“The District Court made specific, well-reasoned findings on the record, determining that Ms. Maxwell’s deposition testimony, among other judicial records, should be unsealed,” argued Christine N. Walz, with Holland & Knight. “To overturn the District Court’s ruling, Ms. Maxwell will need to show that the court abused its discretion. She cannot do so.”
Epstein died in his Manhattan jail cell of an apparent suicide last August while he was awaiting trial on new sex trafficking charges.
The Herald also reported that the Epstein estate released its third quarter report, covering April 1 through June 30. The report revealed that attorneys have received more that $2.1 million from the estate, and it has made two payments — worth more than $2.8 million — into the Epstein victims’ compensation fund.
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[Featured image: Ghislaine Maxwell in 2009 Credit: Globe/MediaPunch/IPX via AP]
