Attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein pal and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell are seeking to throw out her conviction, claiming prosecutors used her as a proxy for Epstein, who died in his prison cell from a presumed suicide before he could be brought to trial.
The attorneys also claimed prosecutors waited too long to charge the British socialite and she was immune from prosecution anyway, and a juror was biased against her, Reuters reported about the late Tuesday night filing.
Maxwell, 61, was convicted in December 2021 on five charges of recruiting four girls for Epstein’s sexual abuse between 1994 and 2004, as CrimeOnline has previously reported. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a federal facility in Tallahassee, Florida.
Nearly all the claims in Maxwell’s appeal were made unsuccessfully before and during her trial, including disputed claims that she was left “disoriented and diminished” by “deplorable” conditions while in jail in Manhattan, where the trial took place.
“The government prosecuted Ms. Maxwell as a proxy for Jeffrey Epstein” to satisfy “public outrage” over Epstein’s avoidance of accountability. That included Epstein’s sweetheart deal 2007 non-prosecution agreement with then US Attorney in Florida Alex Acosta — later Donald Trump’s labor secretary — that promised not to prosecute him on federal trafficking charges if he pleaded guilty to a state prostitution charge. Maxwell’s attorneys claim she the agreement covered her as a “potential co-conspirator.”
The attorneys also argued that the statute of limitations had run out and that Jury 50 — Scotty David — “harbored actual bias” against their client because he failed to disclose that he had been sexually assaulted.
Maxwell dumped her legal team from the trial and has hired a new group of lawyers, led by Arthur Aidala, who represented convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein in his first sex crimes trial in 2020.
US Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan declined to comment on the appeal but is expected to reply to Aidala’s motions in court.
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[Featured image: FILE – AP Photo/John Minchillo, File]
