Ghislaine Maxwell again asks judge to vacate her sex trafficking conviction and release her
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted co-conspirator of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is again asking a federal judge in New York to vacate her sex trafficking conviction and release her from prison.
Maxwell submitted her new request, which she wrote herself, to federal prosecutors in New York, who said they received "a FedEx envelope -- marked with a 'ship date' of April 16, 2026 -- that contained a USB drive with the defendant's amended motion and exhibits," according to a letter to the district court that was posted online early Monday morning.
Prosecutors did not disclose details of Maxwell's argument, which has not yet been filed on the public docket, but said it "seems to have some overlap" with her original motion to dismiss that district and appellate courts rejected in 2024. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently declined to hear her appeal.
Having exhausted all of her direct appeals, Maxwell filed a habeas petition this past December in which she contended that "substantial new evidence has emerged" regarding her case. Maxwell's submission this week comes after the district court judge, in February, allowed Maxwell to submit an amendment to that petition following the Justice Department's release of the Epstein files.
Maxwell previously argued, unsuccessfully, that her conviction and her 20-year sentence should be tossed because she did not receive a fair trial and was covered by the non-prosecution agreement that Epstein's attorneys had negotiated for him as part of the wealthy financier's 2008 plea deal.
She also argued her conviction was based on vague allegations of "grooming" victims that did not amount to a crime.
Maxwell is currently serving her sentence for aiding and participating in Epstein's trafficking of underage girls, which involved a scheme to recruit young women and girls for massages of Epstein that turned sexual. Federal prosecutors in New York said Maxwell helped Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately abuse girls as young as 14.
In an interview with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last month, Ghislaine Maxwell said nothing during the interview that would be harmful to President Donald Trump, telling Blanche that Trump had never done anything in her presence that would have caused concern, according to sources familiar with what Maxwell said.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.
