Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, has requested that the US supreme court overturn her conviction, saying she was unjustly prosecuted.
In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced in Manhattan to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and other related crimes. Her legal team, however, submitted a request to the supreme court on Monday, seeking to overturn the lower court’s decision, arguing that a prior plea deal that Epstein took protected Maxwell from prosecution.
Maxwell’s submission to the supreme court comes days after she met justice department officials, as discussions began to see whether she would turn into a US government cooperator. Observers have suggested Maxwell may be able to expose new information about Epstein’s sex trafficking and the wealthy individuals who may have also been involved. It is not clear if Maxwell will become a US government cooperator and what she may receive in return.
Maxwell’s supreme court filing argues that Epstein’s 2007 plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida should have barred her prosecution.
The controversial 2007 plea agreement between Epstein and the justice department said that if Epstein followed the terms of the plea agreement, the US government would not charge “any potential co-conspirators of Epstein”, including “but not limited to” four co-conspirators. Maxwell is not one of the four co-conspirators named in the agreement, but her attorneys say she did not need to be named to receive the protection from that deal.
Maxwell’s legal team is asking the supreme court to review the case, arguing that the federal plea deal signed in Florida should have been respected in New York.
The justice department, for its part, previously argued that the Florida plea deal did not extend to other federal districts, including the southern district of New York, where Maxwell was eventually tried and sentenced.
Most federal cases in the US are settled through plea agreements.
The US attorney in Florida who negotiated Epstein’s plea deal at the time, Alexander Acosta, came under significant scrutiny during the first Trump administration after being appointed US secretary of labor. He resigned from that position after facing significant criticism following Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
The justice department has faced scrutiny from Democrats and Trump supporters in recent weeks, after it released a memo saying it did not uncover evidence to charge “third parties”. In the memo, the justice department and the FBI said there was “no incriminating ‘client list’.”
Trump has faced renewed criticism over the Epstein case, due to his past ties to the wealthy financier. In mid-July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump wrote a “bawdy” birthday note to Epstein in 2003. In response to that story, Trump filed a $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Journal and its owners, including the rightwing billionaire Rupert Murdoch. The paper was banned last week from participating in the press pool during Trump’s upcoming trip to Scotland.
On Monday, Trump asked a federal court in Florida to quickly depose Murdoch in the defamation case. Reuters reported a court filing submitted by Trump’s attorneys describing an interaction between Trump and Murdoch. The filing said Trump had told Murdoch before the Journal article was published that the “bawdy” note was “fake” and that Murdoch said he would “take care of it”. A federal judge ordered Murdoch to respond by 4 August.
This week, the Wall Street Journal also reported that, as the justice department reviewed Epstein-related documents, Trump’s name appeared in the files multiple times.
