US Supreme Court declines to hear Ghislaine Maxwell appeal

US Supreme Court declines to hear Ghislaine Maxwell appeal

The 63-year-old’s bid to overturn her conviction failed, leaving her to serve a 20-year sentence for recruiting girls for Jeffrey Epstein.

The US Supreme Court rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal without comment. (Getty Images/AFP pic)
WASHINGTON:
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, of her sex trafficking conviction.

The top court rejected Maxwell’s appeal without comment.

Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

The authorities ruled the wealthy financier’s death a suicide, but it has fuelled countless conspiracy theories among President Donald Trump’s voter base.

Many of Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have held as an article of faith that “deep state” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.

Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein, has sought to dampen the continuing political furore over Epstein, calling it a “Democrat hoax”.

Maxwell had appealed her 2022 sex trafficking conviction in New York on the grounds that she should have been protected from prosecution by an agreement secured by Epstein in a 2007 case.

Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate convicted in connection with his activities, was recently interviewed by deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer.

Maxwell was moved from a prison in Florida to a minimum-security facility in Texas following the interview with Blanche.

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