Legal move that could see Ghislaine Maxwell walk free
Ghislaine Maxwell’s New York lawyers have filed a last-ditch legal effort in an attempt to overturn her conviction on sex trafficking and grooming.
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Disgraced former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has appealed her conviction and 20-year sentence for helping late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls.
Her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim filed the appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, according to court filings revealed this week.
The document did not detail Maxwell’s arguments for throwing out the conviction, but her attorneys have previously claimed that a juror biased the verdict.
Her legal team have also argued that some of the victims were above the age of consent in certain states where the abuse occurred.
The Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell was found guilty on five of six counts, the most serious for sex trafficking minors, late last year.
The charges stemmed from crimes committed against four women between 1994 and 2004.
Prosecutors successfully proved that she was “the key” to Epstein’s scheme of enticing young girls to give him massages, during which he would sexually abuse them.
New York judge Alison Nathan described Maxwell’s crimes as “heinous and predatory” when she sentenced the 60-year-old last week.
Maxwell’s family confirmed the appeal, which will likely take several months or longer, in a tweet on Friday. Brother Ian Maxwell has previously suggested how they would fight the conviction.
MAXWELL FAMILY TARGETS EPSTEIN’S AUSSIE VICTIM
The brother of Ghislaine Maxwell has signalled that the family’s strategy to “get her life back” will focus on the credibility of Virginia Giuffre.
In two columns written before and after Ms Maxwell’s 20-year sentence on sex trafficking charges, Ian Maxwell called into question the credibility of Jeffrey Epstein’s Australian-American victim.
“The whole process stinks from beginning to end,” Mr Maxwell wrote in The Spectator, adding that Epstein’s victims had shared “huge sums of money”.
“The accusers who appeared at Ghislaine’s trial received US$13.5 million (AUD$20 million) but her principal accuser Virginia Giuffre, who did so much to sway global public opinion against Ghislaine, has never had her credibility nor her unsubstantiated accusations tested in court,” Mr Maxwell wrote.
It follows a similar column days before his sister’s sentencing, in which Mr Maxwell suggested Epstein’s accusers and lawyers have made “vast sums of money” from ”riding a gold-plated gravy train”.
“I feel great sympathy for any girls or women who have genuinely been abused but their abuse doesn’t give them the right automatically to be believed when they make unsubstantiated allegations, especially when those allegations are immensely well rewarded financially.” he wrote in the UK’s Telegraph.
“Ghislaine’s key accuser, throughout, has been a woman called Virginia Giuffre. She has paraded herself outside the court as a serial victim and repeated that in many interviews,” he added. “But here’s the thing, she was never called as a witness for the prosecution in my sister’s trial.”
Ms Giuffre was not called as a witness during the trial, but she was mentioned during testimony and submitted a victim impact statement to the sentencing of Ms Maxwell.
Ms Maxwell’s lawyer, Bobbi C Sternheim, also raised her credibility in a filing seeking to exclude some parts of Ms Giuffre’s letter.
“Ms Giuffre’s impact statement, while admissible under the CVRA (Crime Victims’ Rights Act), should be redacted and the letters challenging her credibility should be made part of the record in this case,” Ms Sternheim wrote.
Ms Maxwell’s legal team has said they would appeal the 20-year sentence. Mr Maxwell noted that Ms Giuffre, meanwhile, would face cross-examination by US lawyer Alan Dershowitz, famous for his roles on the legal teams of OJ Simpson, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein.
“Ms Giuffre will be unable to avoid being cross-questioned in court by Alan Dershowitz, arguably the US’s top lawyer. He alleges that she has lied about him and defamed him. Dershowitz has also stated that he believes she has committed perjury and, if that’s right, and it’s judged to be criminal perjury, she herself could go to prison for years,” he wrote.
“That’s not going to save my sister from being sentenced,” he added. “But we will be throwing all our efforts behind appealing her sentence.”
A spokeswoman for Ms Giuffre did not immediately respond to News Corp Australia’s request for comment on the two columns.
‘GREATEST REGRET OF MY LIFE’: MAXWELL TELLS VICTIMS
Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting and trafficking underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.
The fallen British socialite – who once called princes and presidents close friends – was given “240 months” in prison followed by five years supervised release at her sentencing hearing in a Manhattan Federal Court on Tuesday local time.
She was also ordered to pay a $US750,000 fine (A$1.08m), which her legal team said she is unable to afford.
Maxwell, 60, wearing a grey T-shirt over a white, long sleeve top, and baggy trousers didn’t appear to shed any tears upon learning her fate.
Her siblings including two sisters and brother sat behind her, in a show of support, as they did throughout her six week trial last year.
Moments earlier, several of her victims delivered powerful impact statements, before Maxwell took to the stand for the first time.
“It is hard for me to address the court after listening to the pain and anguish expressed her today,” Maxwell said, after removing her Covid mask and putting on her reading glasses.
“The terrible impact on the lives of these women is difficult to hear and absorb. I want to acknowledge their suffering. I empathise deeply with all the victims in this case.”
Maxwell said her “association with Epstein and this case will forever and permanently stain me”.
“It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein,” she added.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the late billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein at his mansions and estates in Manhattan, New Mexico, Florida and the Virgin Islands between 1994 and 2004.
A jury found her guilty on five of six counts, the most serious being for sex trafficking minors. Two of the counts were later dropped for being redundant.
Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges, was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019. He died by suicide, aged 66, in his jail cell one month later while awaiting his own sex crimes trial in New York.
Maxwell – who has been jailed in a notorious New York prison since her arrest two years ago – told the court that she’s “had a lot of time to think” and that she’d come to the realisation that Epstein had “fooled all of those in his orbit”.
“Jeffrey Epstein should have been here before all of you,” Maxwell said at the podium, her legs shackled.
“It is not about Epstein, ultimately. It is for me to be sentenced.”
Maxwell acknowledged that she had been convicted of helping Epstein but stopped short of taking responsibility for her role in the sex-trafficking of young women.
“To you, all the victims … I am sorry for the pain that you experienced,” she continued.
“It is my sincerest wish to all those in this courtroom and to all those outside this courtroom that this day brings a terrible chapter to the end, to an end. And to those of you who spoke here today and those of you who did not, may this day help you travel from darkness into the light.”
Maxwell acknowledged that she had been convicted of helping Epstein but stopped short of taking responsibility for her role in the sex-trafficking of young women.
“I am sorry for the pain that you’ve experienced,” Maxwell said.
“I hope my conviction … brings you closure.”
She intends to appeal her conviction, her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim told reporters outside court.
Ms Sternheim said she has resisted speaking before the sentence was delivered “out of respect for the court” but said “the mask (is now) off”. She claimed that her client had been “vilified,” “pilloried” and “tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.”
“Even before she steeped into this courthouse, she was being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion,” she said.
Ms Sternheim said that jurors had treated Maxwell as a proxy for Epstein, who she described as “clever and cunning to the end”.
Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking minors. Her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim told reporters outside court that Jeffrey Epstein was “cunning until the end†and left her client Ghislaine Maxwell “holding the whole bagâ€. She will appeal. pic.twitter.com/zrV63r4zUs
— Megan Palin (@Megan_Palin) June 28, 2022
“Jeffrey Epstein left Ghislaine Maxwell holding the whole bag,” she continued.
“We all know the person who should have been sentenced today escaped accountability, avoided his victims, avoided absorbing their pain, and receiving the punishment he truly deserved.
“We recognise that the public at large has little sympathy or compassion for inmates, of course until they themselves or their families have brushes with the law and find themselves thrust into the criminal justice system.”
US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement tweeted by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York that “today’s sentence holds Ghislaine Maxwell accountable for perpetrating heinous crimes against children.”
“This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice,” he said.
Maxwell’s sentencing came just days after her lawyers said she had been placed on suicide watch and asked for the sentencing to be postponed.
While four victims gave evidence at Maxwell’s trial, the judge granted requests from a total of eight women to give victim impact statements either in writing or in person at the sentencing.
They included Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre, Annie Farmer, ‘Kate’, Sarah Ransome and Elizabeth Stein.
Giuffre has yet to publicly comment on the outcome.
She was not available for comment when News Corp paid a visit at her Perth home on Wednesday, hours after the sentence was handed down.
A young male at the door said they did not wish to comment.
A woman arrived at the house carrying flowers.
In her victim impact statement, Farmer asked the judge to consider the lasting effects of Maxwell’s behaviour on her victims.
“Judge Nathan, I hope when you consider the appropriate prison sentence for the role Maxwell played in this sex trafficking operation, you take into account the ongoing suffering of the many women she abused and exploited as we will continue to live with the memories of the ways she harmed us,” she wrote.
“I hope you weigh the systemic effects of the crimes she perpetrated – the ways that our family members, romantic partners, and friends have been hurt through our suffering.”
Outside the court, Farmer described Maxwell’s sentencing statement as “a very hollow apology”.
“She did not take responsibility for the crimes that she committed and it felt like, once more, her trying to do something to benefit her and not at all about the harm she had caused,” she said.
Farmer was one of four women who testified during Maxwell’s trial late last year.
During her testimony, Farmer described how Maxwell’s presence had initially made her more comfortable when she had visited Maxwell and Epstein in 1996 on Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico.
But that soon gave way to growing discomfort as Farmer, who was 16 at the time, described how Maxwell touched Farmer’s bare breast during a massage she gave the teenage girl. Epstein later molested Farmer in her bed, which she only escaped by hiding in the bathroom.
In her victim impact statement read out in court by her lawyer, Giuffre – who did not testify and was not in court for the sentencing – told Maxwell she would not have met “terrible paedophile Jeffrey Epstein if it was not for you”.
“You opened a door to hell,” she said.
“And then, Ghislaine, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you used your femininity to betray us, and you led us all through it.”
“Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. You deserve to be trapped in a cage forever, just like you trapped your victims.”
In their sentencing submission, federal prosecutors also cited Maxwell’s crimes against Giuffre, who said she was recruited by Maxwell as a teenager while working as a spa attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, and another woman using the name Melissa, who said she first met Epstein when she was 16.
Another victim, identified only as “Kate,” said Maxwell’s “final insult” was her lack of remorse after being found guilty. She said Maxwell had endless opportunities to stop the abuse.
“You could have put an end to the rapes, the molestations, the sickening manipulations that you arranged, witnessed and even took part in,” Kate said in court.
The US Probation Office earlier recommended that Maxwell be sentenced to 20 years in prison, while federal prosecutors asked for her to be sentenced to between 30 and 55 years in prison calling her crimes “monstrous” and saying she played an “instrumental role in the horrific sexual abuse of multiple young teenage girls.”
In a filing, prosecutors said Maxwell “enjoyed a life of extraordinary luxury and privilege” while preying on troubled young girls, prosecutors for the Southern District of New York wrote in the sentencing submission.
“In her wake Maxwell left her victims permanently scarred with emotional and psychological injuries,” the filing says.
Maxwell’s lawyers argued she should receive no more than five years and three months.
In handing down her sentence, Judge Nathan said Maxwell failed to accept responsibility for her role in the crimes or show remorse.
“Today’s sentence will attempt to acknowledge the harm that Ms Maxwell has caused,” Nathan said.
The court has no jurisdiction over where she is incarcerated. Instead it is up to the Bureau of Prisons, an organisation which Ms Maxwell’s lawyers have been publicly complaining about for months.
It is possible they will push for her to be transferred to a low-security women’s prison at Danbury, Connecticut, the setting for the TV series Orange Is The New Black, according to reports.
Since her arrest in July 2020, Maxwell has been housed in Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center. Her legal team argued that she should serve less than five years in prison because of the treatment she has already been subjected to by the media, prison guards, and inmates.
Her legal team has argued that their client has been subjected to “discriminatory and punitive” treatment, including solitary confinement, “unjustified sleep deprivation” and “excessive” strip searches where Ms Maxwell’s “breasts and genitalia were touched in a rough and reckless manner”.
The Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell and former international jetsetter grew up in wealth and privilege as a friend to royalty.
Her circle included Britain’s Prince Andrew, former US president and real estate baron Donald Trump, and the Clinton family.
Prosecutors in her trial said Maxwell was “the key” to Epstein’s scheme of enticing young girls to give him massages, during which he would sexually abuse them.
In February, Prince Andrew settled a sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre, who said she had been trafficked to the royal by Epstein and Maxwell.
- with AFP
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