The Supreme Court has officially rejected the appeal from Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, meaning she will continue to serve her 20-year prison sentence. The justices declined to take up the case on the very first day of their new term, shutting down her last-ditch legal effort to overturn her conviction.
This is a pretty huge deal, as Maxwell’s lawyers were really leaning on a highly technical argument. They contended that Maxwell should never have been tried or convicted in the first place because of a 2007 non-prosecution agreement (NPA). This agreement was originally struck between federal prosecutors in Miami and Epstein’s legal team, and her side argued it also protected his “potential co-conspirators” (like Maxwell) from federal charges anywhere in the country.
Unfortunately for her, the federal appeals court in Manhattan had already ruled the prosecution was proper, and now the Supreme Court has basically confirmed that the NPA was never going to be a golden ticket out of her sentence. As is their custom, the justices didn’t explain why they turned away the appeal, per AP News.
Supreme Court makes Maxell kick rocks back to prison
What’s wild is that the Trump administration had previously urged the high court to stay out of the case, suggesting they wanted this sordid saga put to rest. This is the same administration that had been trying to tamp down on criticism about its refusal to publicly release more investigative files from Epstein’s case, too. You can see how this whole thing had the potential to draw a ton of renewed, and unwanted, attention.
Meanwhile, Maxwell is currently serving her time, found guilty by a jury of sex trafficking a teenage girl, along with other charges. Her trial featured heartbreaking accounts of sexual exploitation told by four different women who described being abused as teens at Epstein’s homes during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Recently, Maxwell was actually moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas. This move came right after she was interviewed in July by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. She was granted limited immunity for the interview, meaning she could speak freely without fear of further prosecution for anything she said, unless she lied.
1/ Judge Immergut just granted a restraining order that prevents Trump's mobilization of the Oregon National Guard in Portland. pic.twitter.com/3Hn5Kz3fCH
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During that interview, she repeatedly denied witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions involving President Donald Trump. This denial, which came out in records released in August, seemed to be a deliberate effort to distance Trump from the disgraced financier. Even with this kind of cooperation or statement, the legal outcome is clear: without a pardon, the Supreme Court’s decision means she’s staying exactly where she is.
For anyone who remembers the full context, the Epstein case has been a roller coaster. Epstein himself was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls. He was found dead in a New York jail cell just a month later, in what investigators ruled a suicide. The whole thing consumed the Trump administration for a while, especially when the FBI and the Justice Department announced they wouldn’t release additional documents from the investigation.
