The Supreme Court Monday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her conviction as Jeffrey Epstein’s main accomplice in his sex trafficking case, leaving a pardon from President Trump as the ex-socialite’s only chance for freedom.
On the first day of their new term, the justices declined without comment to take up Maxwell’s claim that prosecutors should have been bound by a sweetheart deal made by a Florida federal prosecutor not to prosecute Epstein or his alleged co-conspirators in exchange for a guilty plea to state charges.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term. The ruling means her only chance of winning release anytime soon would be if Trump, her former friend from Palm Beach social circles, pardons her or commutes her sentence, a decision that would likely enrage victims and spark a political firestorm.
The decision comes as Trump and his Republican allies continue to seek to turn the page on a wave of popular outrage, including from his far right-wing MAGA base, over his refusal to release all the prosecution files on the Epstein case.
House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to delay swearing in newly elected Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona) after she won a special election to fill the seat previously held by her late father who died of cancer.
Grijalva would be the 214th Democrat in the House and the 218th signature on a petition to force Johnson to call a vote on a measure demanding Trump release all the files.
Maxwell, whose late billionaire father once owned the Daily News, argued that she never should have been tried for her role in luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
Alex Acosta, then the Miami U.S. attorney and a future Trump cabinet official, agreed not to prosecute Epstein or anyone else in the sprawling scheme if he pleaded to lesser charges in Florida.
Manhattan federal prosecutors later disregarded that agreement, claiming it only applied to south Florida, and charged Epstein and Maxwell.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial in a Manhattan federal jail. Maxwell was convicted for her role after a trial featuring lurid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14 told by four women who described being abused as teens by both Epstein and Maxwell.
Maxwell recently met for two days with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a very unusual jailhouse sitdown that critics say was designed to curry favor with Trump.
After Maxwell and Blanche met, she was moved from a Florida prison to a a cushy minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
The feds have refused to explain why Maxwell was granted the unusual transfer, which has drawn outrage from victims.
The Epstein scandal consumed Trump’s administration over the summer following a July announcement that it wouldn’t release any more documents from the probe, a decision that reversed earlier vows for full disclosure.
Facing fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page on the damaging dispute, deriding the Epstein scandal as a liberal “hoax.”
