Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a US judge on June 28, 2022, for helping the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls.聽 聽
Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a US judge on June 28, 2022, for helping the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls.聽 聽
NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 A U.S. court on Tuesday upheld disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction on sex trafficking charges for helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein abuse underage girls.
Maxwell’s lawyers had argued that her convictions violated an with federal prosecutors 15 years ago in which he agreed to plead guilty to sex crimes and his co-conspirators were granted immunity. The lawyers also said some of the charges were brought after the statute of limitations had expired, and alleged judicial errors during her trial and sentencing.
But a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected all of those arguments.
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鈥淚dentifying no errors in the District Court鈥檚 conduct of this complex case, we affirm the District Court鈥檚 鈥 judgment of conviction,鈥 Judge Jose Cabranes wrote in the ruling.
Maxwell, 62, was found guilty in December 2021 of luring young girls to Epstein so he could molest them, between 1994 and 2004. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2022.
Epstein hundreds of times over more than a decade, exploiting vulnerable girls as young as 14. Prosecutors said Maxwell, his longtime companion, helped him and made the abuse possible.
He in 2019 while awaiting trial.
The case has drawn widespread attention because of Epstein and Maxwell鈥檚 links to royals, presidents and billionaires. Maxwell herself is the daughter of the late British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who once owned the New York Daily News.
While their celebrity connections didn鈥檛 play a prominent role in Maxwell鈥檚 trial, mentions of friends such as Bill Clinton and Donald Trump showed how the pair exploited their connections to impress their prey.
The trial revolved around allegations from . Four testified that they were abused in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein鈥檚 mansions in Florida, New York, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands.
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In 2007, Epstein reached a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida in which he agreed to plead guilty to two sex crimes and serve 18 months in prison. As part of the arrangement, known as an NPA, prosecutors agreed not to prosecute any of Epstein鈥檚 co-conspirators.
The appeals court ruled that this agreement applied only to the U.S. Attorney鈥檚 Office in the Southern District of Florida and didn鈥檛 apply to prosecutors in New York.
鈥淭here is nothing in the NPA that affirmatively shows that the NPA was intended to bind multiple districts,鈥 Carbanes wrote. 鈥淚nstead, where the NPA is not silent, the agreement鈥檚 scope is expressly limited to the Southern District of Florida.鈥
The court also rejected suggestions that some of the charges were filed too late, saying that Congress in 2003 passed legislation stating that no statute of limitations would apply to crimes involving the sexual or physical abuse of minors 鈥渄uring the life of the child.鈥
鈥淭he statutory text makes clear that Congress intended to extend the time to bring charges of sexual abuse for pre-enactment conduct as the prior statute of limitations was inadequate,鈥 Carbanes wrote.
Maxwell is at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida.
