Ghislaine Maxwell on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court to throw out her sex trafficking conviction and 20-year prison sentence for aiding Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual exploitation of teenage girls.
In a habeas petition filed before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, the former socialite — representing herself — argued new information arising in related lawsuits, and various reports and disclosures by the government, demonstrated her imprisonment was unlawful.
“The cumulative effect of these constitutional violations constitutes a complete miscarriage of justice, rendering Petitioner’s conviction invalid, unsafe and infirm,” Maxwell wrote.
The long-shot legal bid could impact the full release of the so-called “Epstein files” — a trove of investigative materials that federal law enforcement has gathered on the deceased financier — which the Justice Department must share with the public by Friday, according to a law enacted by Congress last month. Baked into the legislation are provisions that guard against the release of evidence that could affect active investigations and legal matters.
The federal appeals court refused to overturn Maxwell’s conviction on appeal in September 2024, and the Supreme Court declined to take it up in October.
Having exhausted all other avenues, Maxwell, 63, raised nine grounds to convince the court her conviction was unconstitutional in her habeas petition, including allegations the feds had suppressed evidence. She also rehashed several arguments from her failed appeal, such as that some jurors who found her guilty had a history of being sexually abused and were therefore too biased to decide the case — and doubled down on her argument that the notorious sweetheart deal afforded to Epstein in the late 2000s should have shielded her from prosecution.
Maxwell also framed as new evidence that should clear her name recent comments by victims’ lawyers indicating 25 men who’d never been prosecuted had reached settlements with Epstein accusers.
Maxwell has long maintained she was scapegoated after Epstein was found dead in August 2019 while awaiting trial in jail custody, and that the feds could no longer hold him to account. Her new legal filing argued former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr “admitted that post Epstein’s death they were looking for someone to indict for trafficking.”
Epstein’s longtime right-hand — who holds British, French, and U.S. citizenship — was found guilty in December 2021 of sex trafficking, conspiracy, and related counts after prosecutors argued she had groomed teenage girls and young women to be sexually trafficked, abused, and exploited by Epstein inside his lavish properties for at least a decade beginning in 1994.
Four women testified at the trial, one of whom, Carolyn Andriano, testified about first being abused by Epstein when she was 14. Andriano died of a drug overdose in 2023.
Maxwell is serving out her sentence at a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, where she was moved this summer from a less cushy setup at a maximum security prison in Tallahassee, Florida. The unusual transfer came after she sat down with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former personal lawyer.
Maxwell did not implicate the president over two days of the unusual interviews. If her new approach fails, a commutation from Trump may be her only chance at release.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment.
