Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime associate of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, speaks at a news conference on oceans and sustainable development at the United Nations in New York, June 25, 2013 in this screengrab taken from United Nations TV file footage.
UNTV | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would not hear the appeal of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former British socialite serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking related to the abuse of underage girls by Jeffrey Epstein.
The decision comes as the Trump administration remains the focus of criticism for refusing to release investigative files about Epstein and Maxwell despite prior promises to make those documents public.
The Supreme Court did not indicate how many of its nine justices, if any, would have granted Maxwell’s request to hear her appeal.
Maxwell’s attorneys argued to the court that she should not have been prosecuted at all by federal authorities in New York.
They cited a non-prosecution agreement Epstein obtained from the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida that included a provision that the United States not lodge any criminal charges against “any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.”
Epstein, under the terms of that agreement, pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state charges related to procuring a minor for prostitution.
Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her crimes.
She was convicted in Manhattan federal court in 2022, three years after Epstein killed himself in a federal jail shortly after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
With the Supreme Court’s order Monday, Maxwell’s final hope of winning an early release may be in obtaining a pardon or sentence commutation from President Donald Trump, who is a former friend of both her and Epstein.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked Monday by a reporter at a briefing if the White House would rule out granting Maxwell executive clemency, said, “It’s not something I’ve heard discussed, and we don’t comment on clemency requests that may or may not have been made, but I’m certainly not tracking that one.”
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, in a statement, said, “We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case.”
“But this fight isn’t over,” Markus said. “Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”
Relatives of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein and Maxwell’s best-known accusers, in a statement to NBC on Monday, said, “We, the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, are grateful to the Supreme Court for denying Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal to invalidate her conviction.”
“We are committed to ensuring that convicted child sex trafficker Maxwell serves out the entirety of her 20-year sentence in prison, where she belongs,” Giuffre’s family said.
“We remain hopeful that the [Department of Justice] will realize that she belongs in a maximum security prison, not the country club one she is currently in, the first human trafficker ever to have been afforded that privilege.”
Maxwell is currently locked up in a minimum-security camp in Texas.
Maxwell was sent there from a more-restrictive prison in Florida shortly after a two-day interview with Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum-security prison would have required a waiver under Bureau of Prisons policy because she is a convicted sex offender.
Blanche is Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer.
