Ghislaine Maxwell
Judge rejects motion for new trial
Ghislaine Maxwell faces a life sentence.
© imago/ZUMA Wire
Ghislaine Maxwell’s hope for a new trial has been dashed. The judge in charge dismissed her request.
The process of Ghislaine Maxwell (60) will not be reopened. That’s what Manhattan judge Alison Nathan said according to a report by CNN communicated last Friday (April 1st). Maxwell was found guilty at the end of 2021 of having supplied girls and young women to the dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (1953-2019) for his sex ring. Her lawyers had pushed for a retrial after a juror allegedly gave false information on a questionnaire.
The man in question failed to state that he himself was a victim of sexual abuse as a child. Had he done so, however, Maxwell’s defense attorneys considered he would not have been a jury member in the case because of possible bias.
After questioning “juror number 50”, Scotty David, the court had no doubts that the false statement was an accident. He was briefly distracted and answered the question too hastily. His reasoning was “true and he showed no evidence of prejudice against Maxwell,” according to the report in a 40-page statement by Judge Nathan. In addition, he would not have been singled out for the jury if he had answered the question correctly right away.
Maxwell is accused of that – and that threatens her
Maxwell has been in prison since July 2020. Prosecutors accused her of being Epstein’s right-hand man, procuring underage victims for his sex ring. The British always rejected the allegations and refrained from making a statement. She was found guilty of five out of six charges at the end of last year.
You face a long, possibly even life imprisonment. It is still a long time before the sentence is announced – it will be announced on June 28, 2022.