Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal against her sex trafficking conviction has been rejected by a US court.
The 62-year-old was found guilty in December 2021 of luring young girls to massage rooms for paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein to molest between 1994 and 2004.
She was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the federal court in the southern district of New York (SDNY) in June 2022.
The court also concluded Maxwell’s sentence was “procedurally reasonable”.
Her lawyers argued in March that she “should never have been prosecuted” due to a “weird” agreement drafted more than 15 years ago.
Three judges dismissed her arguments, concluding that the non-prosecution agreement drafted in Florida “does not bind” the United States Attorney’s Office for SDNY.
It read: “The district court … determined that Juror 50’s erroneous responses during voir dire were ‘not deliberately incorrect’ and that
‘he would not have been struck for cause if he had provided accurate responses to the questionnaire’.
“In fact, as the district court noted, Maxwell did not challenge the inclusion of other jurors who disclosed past experience with sexual abuse, assault, or harassment.
“This is enough – the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Maxwell’s motion for a new trial.”
During her three-week trial, jurors heard prosecutors describe Maxwell as “dangerous”, and were told details of how she helped entice vulnerable teenagers to Epstein’s various properties for him to sexually abuse.
US government lawyers previously said Maxwell’s appeal arguments “fall far short of establishing that sentencing judge Alison Nathan abused her discretion” in her decision not to overturn the jury’s verdict.
They have also said her sentence was not unfair and that her arguments to the contrary are “so cursory and undeveloped” that they should be dismissed.
The three judges – Jose Cabranes, Richard Wesley and Raymond Lohier, Jr – said of the length of Maxwell’s sentence: “With respect to the length of the sentence, the district court properly discussed the sentencing factors when imposing the sentence, and described, at length, Maxwell’s ‘pivotal role in facilitating the abuse of the under-aged girls through a series of deceptive tactics’.
“The District Court recognised that the sentence ‘must reflect the gravity of Ms Maxwell’s conduct, of Ms Maxwell’s offence, the pivotal role she played in facilitating the offence, and the significant and lasting harm it inflicted’.
“And the district court explained that ‘a very serious, a very significant sentence is necessary to achieve the purposes of punishment’.
“In sum, the district court did not err by failing to adequately explain its sentence.”
Maxwell has been incarcerated since July 2020, despite numerous attempts from her defence counsel to have her released on bail.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019 while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
The death was ruled a suicide.
