The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not take up a bid by Ghislaine Maxwell to overturn her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not take up a bid by Ghislaine Maxwell to overturn her 2021 conviction and 20-year prison sentence for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse minor girls with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell’s appeal to the high court attracted added attention this summer as the Trump administration came under pressure to release more material related to the Justice Department’s investigation into Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019. Congress also opened its own examination of the federal probe and has obtained and released thousands of pages of records related to Epstein, though many were already in the public domain.
Senior Justice Department officials unsuccessfully petitioned a federal court in New York to unseal grand jury material in Epstein’s case, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell in Tallahassee, Florida, in July to discuss her relationship with Epstein and the allegations against her.
The Supreme Court’s rejection of Maxwell’s case means her conviction and sentence will remain intact, barring a presidential pardon.
At the heart of Maxwell’s appeal is a 2007 nonprosecution agreement between the U.S. attorney in Miami and Epstein, which she argued barred her prosecution for sex-trafficking violations.
Epstein’s lawyers and then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta entered into the deal after a federal investigation into allegations Epstein engaged in sexual abuse of underage girls. In exchange for avoiding federal charges, Epstein agreed to plead guilty to two state prostitution charges and serve an 18-month prison sentence.
