OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
5:32 PM – Monday, November 25, 2024
Ghislaine Maxwell, a popular British socialite and former accomplice of the late pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is seeking to overturn a ruling that upheld her conviction in a US appeals court. However, it was rejected.
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2n.d. In a ruling issued Monday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Maxwell's request for an en banc review, a review of the case by all of the court's current judges.
September 17ththa three-judge court denied multiple motions to overturn her 2021 conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court is not required to hear her case, but Maxwell, 62, reportedly plans to appeal.
She will be eligible for release in July 2037 after completing her 20-year sentence at a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida.
In an email, Maxwell's lawyer, Arthur Aidala, expressed disappointment in Monday's ruling and his “cautiously optimistic” belief that the Supreme Court would consider her appeal.
Maxwell was previously convicted of five counts of recruiting and grooming underage girls for abuse by his now-deceased ex-boyfriend Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
The Court of Appeal upheld her conviction, citing the trial judge's conclusion that Maxwell helped enable abuse that caused “serious and lasting harm.”
Maxwell also argued that Epstein was protected from prosecution in New York by a 2007 non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in southern Florida, which resulted in his guilty plea to state prostitution charges in 2008. Rejected.
In their request for en banc review, Maxwell's lawyers asked:n.d. Circuit Court reversing a 1985 ruling that held that “unless a broader restriction appears to be intended, plea bargains are binding only on the United States attorney for the district in which the plea bargain is made.” newsmax Reported.
Lawyers argued that the result was “in tension” with two Supreme Court decisions on plea-immunity agreements and contradicted decisions by other federal appeals courts.
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