Ghislaine Maxwell should never have been prosecuted, lawyers argue in appeal hearing

Sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell with paedophile and billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Ghislaine Maxwell should never have been prosecuted for sex trafficking, her lawyers argued as they launched an appeal of her 20-year prison sentence.

The US government decided to “take another shot” at the disgraced socialite because of media pressure, they claimed.

Maxwell, 62, was convicted in 2021 of having recruited and groomed four underage girls for paedophile and billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein.

However, her lawyers argue she was immune from the charges because of a plea deal Epstein struck in 2008, in which he pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges to end a federal investigation.

Diana Fabi Samson, acting for Maxwell, said the agreement, though struck in Florida, gave Maxwell immunity across the US.

Fabi Samson went on to claim Maxwell’s prosecution “strikes a dagger” into trust between the US government and defendants, suggesting that it could imperil future plea agreements.

“That promise was fulfilled for many years until 2018, when certain articles in the Miami Herald brought renewed interest in the case,” she said.

“The result of that was the justice department looked into the matter and the southern district of New York decided to take another shot.”

Reporting by the Miami Herald brought to light the testimonies of dozens of women who said they had been abused by Epstein.

It also reported the details of what it characterised as Epstein’s “sweetheart deal”, which a federal judge later ruled was illegal.

Andrew Rohrbach, acting for the US government, said there was no “affirmative intent” for the agreement to “bind the southern district of New York or any other districts in the nation”.