Judge upholds Ghislaine Maxwell’s 20-year sex trafficking sentence
What’s new: The ruling said her habeas claims relied on evidence that was largely irrelevant, late or baseless.
A federal judge in New York rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to void her 2021 sex trafficking conviction and 20-year prison term for helping Jeffrey Epstein abuse teenage girls. In a decision made public Aug. 25, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that Maxwell’s habeas petition did not raise any facts that could unsettle the trial outcome, calling her arguments meritless and in many instances frivolous. Maxwell had argued that documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act showed due process violations and improper coordination between accusers’ lawyers and prosecutors. Engelmayer found the purportedly new material largely irrelevant to her case.