SCOTUS Slams Door On Ghislaine Maxwell Appeal

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her criminal conviction for her part in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted on three counts, including sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor. Despite the setback at the Supreme Court, Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said that “this fight isn’t over,” NBC News reported.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Markus contended that Jeffrey Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of Florida — which shielded him and his potential co-conspirators from federal charges — should also apply to one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s three counts prosecuted in New York. The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal. The Justice Department noted that Alex Acosta, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, would have needed authorization from his superiors for Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement to apply beyond that district. However, there is no evidence that such permission was obtained.

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Solicitor General D. John Sauer said that Maxwell’s argument was “incorrect,” adding that she failed to “show that it would succeed in any court of appeals,” The New York Times reported.

Maxwell has been seeking any way to have her prison sentence shortened, including an appeal to President Donald Trump, since her sentencing in June 2022.

Just days after Maxwell petitioned the Supreme Court, she agreed to be interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who asked the convicted sex trafficker numerous questions about Epstein and his associates. The interview was conducted in July, as the Trump administration continued to face backlash over its handling of the Epstein case. Blanche is a former personal attorney of President Trump.

During her interview with Blanche, Maxwell stated that she had never seen any high-profile Epstein associates, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, engage in anything “inappropriate.”

“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” she said of Trump. “The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Along with the appeal to the Supreme Court, Maxwell’s lawyer also said that they were asking “the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes.” Trump told reporters in late July that “nobody’s approached me” about a pardon for Maxwell.

“Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon but nobody’s approached me with it, nobody’s asked me about it,” said Trump, adding, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”

One week after sitting down for the interview with the DOJ, Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison in Texas.