While the eyes of the world are fixated on Sean Diddy Combs’s arrest for sex trafficking and racketeering, another high- profile case has had a meaningful development, as Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal against her 2021 conviction was denied by 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday (17).
She was convicted for helping the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse teenage (sometimes underage) girls.
Daily Mail reported:
“Maxwell, 62, has been serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted on five charges for having recruited and groomed four underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004. She was described as ‘dangerous’ during her trial as jurors were told details of how she helped entice vulnerable teenagers to Epstein’s various properties.
Judge Alison Nathan said at sentencing that Maxwell was ‘central’ to Epstein’s heinous crimes, not a ‘proxy.’ ‘Ms Maxwell worked with Epstein to select young victims who were vulnerable and played a pivotal role in facilitating sexual abuse,’ the judge said.”
Maxwell has been incarcerated since July 2020, despite her numerous attempts to be released on bail.
“Maxwell’s appeal focused on a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in southern Florida, which she said barred her from being prosecuted in Manhattan 13 years later.”
Her defense argued that references in Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement to the ‘United States’ meant that the government was forbidden from prosecuting any ‘potential co-conspirators.’
But prosecutors convinced the court that any mention of the United States was a throwaway reference, and that Epstein’s agreement only applied to prosecutors in southern Florida.
“In addition, Maxwell argued in her appeal that prosecutors scapegoated her because Epstein was dead and the public demanded that someone else be held accountable. She also said her trial was tainted because one juror did not disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child.
In January, DailyMail.com revealed that Maxwell had been telling her fellow inmates in prison to ignore reports on the case and instead promised she would write memoir giving ‘the truth’. ‘She really thinks she hasn’t done anything wrong and that her charges will be dropped when people read it’.”
In a prison interview in 2023, she again denied any knowledge of the dead financier’s crimes,
The disgraced socialite insisted that she ‘regretted ever meeting him’ and that she had no idea he was ‘capable of evil.’
A treasure trove of documents made public in January related to a long-settled defamation case filed against Maxwell by Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre showed that her claims of innocence were false.
Maxwell is serving her sentence in a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida.
She will be eligible for release in July 2037.
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