Ghislaine Maxwell’s last-ditch appeal rejected

Ghislaine Maxwell (right) is serving a 20-year prison sentence in a minimum security prison in Texas for trafficking underage women to Jeffrey Epstein. Photo / Getty Images

Ghislaine Maxwell’s last chance appeal to overturn her sex trafficking conviction has been rejected by the US Supreme Court.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence in a minimum security prison in Texas for trafficking underage women to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender.

Supreme Court judges rejected Maxwell’s appeal. They did not give a reason for refusing to hear the appeal.

Maxwell can only now be freed if she is granted a presidential pardon or clemency.

David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s lawyer, said in July: “We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the President himself to recognise how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted.”

Donald Trump has refused to rule out granting clemency to the disgraced British socialite in exchange for her testimony on Epstein, previously telling reporters: “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about.”

Maxwell’s lawyers argue that her conviction is invalid, saying a plea agreement made with Epstein in Florida in 2007, which shields his associates, should have barred her criminal prosecution in New York.

That agreement stated that “the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein”.

Maxwell’s lawyers said that in its reference to co-conspirators, the agreement placed no geographic limit on where the non-prosecution commitment could be enforced.

The 63-year-old was arrested in 2020 and convicted the following year after being accused of recruiting and grooming girls for sexual encounters with Epstein between 1994 and 2004.

The Epstein case has long been the subject of conspiracy theories, with many believing the disgraced financier sex trafficked underage women to a circle of high-profile associates.

Conspiracy theorists think the financier, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, was murdered to stop his so-called “client list” from becoming public.

In July, Todd Blanche, the US Deputy Attorney General and a former personal lawyer of Trump, met with Maxwell as the US President sought to quell criticism over his government’s failure to publish all of the documentation it holds on Epstein.

Maxwell told Blanche that she was not aware of any “client list” belonging to Epstein and never saw Trump behave inappropriately.

A week after the interview, Maxwell was moved from a low-security prison facility in Florida to a less-restrictive prison camp in Texas.

Inmates at minimum security institutions, also known as federal prison camps, benefit from a low prison-guard-to-inmate ratio and limited to no perimeter fencing.

Maxwell’s transfer to the prison, just a week after she was interviewed by Blanche, was condemned by her victims.

The US Justice Department closed the case on Epstein in July, ruling there was “no incriminating client list” or any evidence that Epstein may have blackmailed prominent people.

Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, said in congressional testimony on September 16 that there was no credible information that Epstein trafficked women and underage girls to anyone but himself.

Maxwell failed to convince a trial judge and the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out her conviction based on the 2007 non-prosecution agreement.

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