Judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘frivolous’ attempt to overturn conviction

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s challenge to her conviction, finding her claims “meritless” or “frivolous.”

Maxwell was trying to vacate her conviction and 20-year prison sentence.

Maxwell was convicted of five felony counts, all arising from her participation with Jeffrey Epstein, in the sexual abuse of young girls over the course of a decade. A federal appeals court upheld her conviction and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up her petition.

In court filings, Maxwell argued documents released in the Epstein files supported her claims of constitutional violations, but U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said her claims were “all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous.”

“And the purported ‘new’ evidence to which Maxwell points, principally materials released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, is largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error,” the judge wrote. “On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges.”

Associates of Maxwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s ruling.

In his 67-page ruling, Engelmayer rejected each of what he called the “10 principal claims” Maxwell raised in what he referred to as her “lengthy and meandering” pro se petition and supplemental filings containing “similarly discursive addenda.” Engelmayer denied her petition without the evidentiary hearing Maxwell sought.

Maxwell had argued — in an amended petition filed in April — that documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act had exposed constitutional and legal violations that rendered her 2021 conviction “invalid, unsafe, and infirm.” She cited DOJ documents from the Epstein files that she contended offered new support to her arguments that the government withheld relevant evidence, that witnesses testified falsely, and that attorneys for Epstein’s victims acted as de facto prosecutors in her criminal case.

Maxwell’s petition “falls very far from the mark,” Engelmayer wrote, describing her claims as “demonstrably meritless” and “based on speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods.”

The judge also rebuked Maxwell’s contention that federal prosecutors selectively targeted her as a substitute for Epstein, after he died by suicide while in federal custody in 2019.

“As the trial showed, the case against Maxwell was based on abundant admissible evidence establishing her knowing participation in enabling a notorious child sex abuser to carry out historically heinous crimes,” Engelmayer wrote. “Far from being discriminatory or unjust, this was the epitome of a virtuous prosecution. The Government and the jury justly held Maxwell accountable for gravely serious federal offenses.”

In her court filings, Maxwell had asked Judge Engelmayer — should he decide to reject her petition — to certify her case for an appeal to a higher court.  

But in his ruling Tuesday, Engelmayer wrote that Maxwell had not “made a substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right, and appellate review is therefore not warranted.”

“Any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith,” Engelmayer wrote, determining that Maxwell would not be granted indigent status — known as “in forma pauperis” — to pursue the appeal without the typical court costs.

If her habeas claims fail, Maxwell’s remaining options would likely be limited to a request to President Donald Trump for a pardon or clemency.