Ghislaine Maxwell insists grand jury docs release would cause ‘severe’ harm to her retrial efforts
WASHINGTON, DC: Convicted trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has warned a judge that releasing grand jury documents from her case could jeopardize her prospects for a fair trial, arguing that the files contain untested claims.
Her request comes as prosecutors prepare to unseal large batches of Epstein-related records under a new transparency law.
Ghislaine Maxwell pushes to keep grand jury files sealed
Maxwell’s attorney wrote in a federal court filing on Wednesday, December 3, that releasing grand jury files from her case could complicate her long-shot attempts to secure a new trial.
“Releasing the grand jury materials from her case, which contain untested and unproven allegations, would create undue prejudice so severe that it would foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial” should she manage to obtain one, they added.
Maxwell’s lawyers have previously urged judges overseeing her case to keep the grand jury materials that led to her criminal indictment sealed.
“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not,” her attorneys wrote in an August filing.
They argued that public interest in the Epstein case “cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain.”
Legal clash grows as Ghislaine Maxwell tries to shield grand jury evidence
New York prosecutors brought federal s*x trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, and he was found dead in his jail cell shortly after his arrest.
For her role in Epstein’s decades-long scheme to recruit young women and girls, Ghislaine Maxwell was indicted in 2020 and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty.
According to prosecutors, Maxwell and Epstein worked together to recruit minors and entice them to travel to Epstein’s properties between 1994 and 2004.
Survivors testified in Manhattan federal court during a month-long trial in 2021 that Maxwell groomed them, confiscated their passports, and sexually abused them. Maxwell, now 63, is not scheduled for release until 2040.
Ghislaine Maxwell's effort and legal arguments
In October, after Ghislaine Maxwell asked the Supreme Court to review whether prosecutors had fairly brought the case against her, the nation’s highest court denied her appeal.
“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” her attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement to The Independent at the time.
“But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”
Her lawyers argued that Jeffrey Epstein’s prior agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida, which included a pledge not to prosecute him or potential co-conspirators, should apply to one of the counts in Maxwell’s case.
