Ghislaine Maxwell urges Supreme Court to hear appeal, says Justice Department wants to distract

Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein. Photo / Getty Images

Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned associate of Jeffrey Epstein, today urged the United States Supreme Court to hear her appeal of her conviction and accused the Trump Administration of making inaccurate, distracting claims in court papers.

Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, has said she was improperly prosecuted by federal officials, arguing that her case should not have proceeded because Epstein had signed a plea agreement years earlier blocking charges against potential co-conspirators.

The Justice Department said the widely criticised Epstein plea agreement, which was signed in South Florida, governed potential prosecutions only in that specific district and did not extend to New York, where Maxwell was indicted and convicted.

In a filing submitted today, Maxwell’s lawyers said the Trump Administration was trying “to distract by reciting a lurid and irrelevant account of Jeffrey Epstein’s misconduct”.

They wrote that the Government was seeking “to rewrite its own promise after the fact” and accused it of making meritless arguments to sidestep “the plain meaning” of the Epstein agreement.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Maxwell’s filing.

While Maxwell’s appeal is not new, her latest arguments are notable given the context surrounding both the Epstein case and her own dealings with the Justice Department.

The Trump Administration has faced immense criticism in recent weeks over its decision not to release more details and files from the investigation into Epstein.

The disgraced financier was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019 and died later that year in jail, in what was ruled a suicide.

Facing continuing blowback, Todd Blanche, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official and President Donald Trump’s former defence lawyer, travelled to Florida last week to interview Maxwell in Tallahassee, where she is serving her 20-year sentence.

Only days earlier, the Justice Department had urged the high court not to hear Maxwell’s appeal and to leave her conviction intact.

Trump has not ruled out granting clemency to Maxwell, saying last week he had not contemplated the issue.

David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, told reporters last week that Maxwell did not make any deals before speaking with Blanche but “would welcome any relief” in her case.