Ghislaine Maxwell loses bid to overturn sex trafficking conviction

Ghislaine Maxwell lost her bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction, paving the way for a decades-long prison sentence.

Lawyers for British socialist had asked a judge to throw out the verdict on several grounds, including insufficient evidence.

Maxwell was convicted in December of recruiting teenage girls for the American financier Jeffrey Epstein who was the victim of sexual abuse from 1994 to 2004.

In a written ruling, New York District Judge Alison Nathan said the jury's guilty verdicts were “easily supported” by extensive testimony and documentary evidence at trial.

However, the judge said she would only sentence Maxwell, 60, on three of the five counts she was convicted of.

The judge said that three of the charges effectively covered the same offense and therefore upheld only one of those three guilty verdicts.

This reduces Maxwell's maximum possible sentence from 10 years to 55 years in prison, according to Reuters.

Judge Nathan wrote: “This legal conclusion in no way calls into question the factual findings of the jury.

“Rather, it highlights that the jury unanimously found – on three occasions – that the defendant is guilty of conspiring with Epstein to lure, transport and traffic in minor girls for the purpose of sexual abuse.”

Maxwell – the daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell – is due to be sentenced on June 28.

Earlier this month, Judge refused to overturn Maxwell's conviction after a juror revealed during deliberations that he had been sexually assaulted as a child.

The juror had not disclosed this fact during pretrial screening in response to questions about prior sexual abuse asked in a written questionnaire.

The juror said he “read through much too quickly” through the questionnaire and did not intentionally give the wrong answer.

In her ruling, Judge Nathan said the juror's failure to disclose his prior sexual abuse during the selection process was highly regrettable but not deliberate.

Learn more:
How Girls Were Lured to Abuse by Jeffrey Epstein
Who is who in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal?

The judge also found that the juror “had no bias against the defendant and could serve as a fair and impartial juror.”

Maxwell, who was arrested in July 2020, remained in jail throughout her legal challenges.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was 66 when he killed himself in a jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.