Attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein confederate Ghislaine Maxwell formally appealed to the Supreme Court docket Monday to toss out her 2021 federal intercourse trafficking conviction, arguing that their consumer is roofed by a controversial 2007 plea settlement Epstein reached with South Florida prosecutors.
“Rather than grapple with the core principles of plea agreements, the government tries to distract by reciting a lurid and irrelevant account of Jeffrey Epstein’s misconduct,” Maxwell’s husband-and-wife authorized workforce, David Oscar and Mona Markus, wrote of their petition.
“But this case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did.”
The much-criticized deal allowed Epstein — who died in his Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019, whereas awaiting trial on federal intercourse trafficking expenses — to plead responsible to state expenses of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors to interact in prostitution.
The settlement — underneath which Epstein was incarcerated for simply 13 months, a lot of that point on work launch — stipulated that the Miami US Lawyer’s Workplace “not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein,” and named 4 people, none of whom had been Maxwell.
The deal additionally immunized “any potential co-conspirators,” which the Markuses say covers their consumer.
“This promise is unqualified,” they wrote. “It isn’t geographically restricted to the Southern District of Florida, it isn’t conditioned on the co-conspirators being identified by the federal government on the time, it doesn’t rely upon what any specific authorities legal professional might have had in his or her head about who could be a co-conspirator, and it incorporates no different caveat or exception.
“This should be the end of the discussion.”
Maxwell was sentenced in June 2022 to twenty years in jail after being convicted six months earlier of intercourse trafficking a minor and conspiracy.
Justice Division officers have contended that then-Miami US Lawyer Alex Acosta lacked the facility to commit different federal districts to the phrases of the 2007 settlement.
Maxwell’s earlier efforts to overturn her conviction fell flat with a trial choose and the New York-based Second Circuit Court docket of Appeals, which rejected her authorized workforce’s arguments.
“No one is above the law—not even the Southern District of New York. Our government made a deal, and it must honor it. The United States cannot promise immunity with one hand in Florida and prosecute with the other in New York,” Maxwell’s attorneys stated in an announcement.
“President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal—and surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it.”
Final week, Maxwell sat for 2 days of interviews concerning the Epstein case with Justice Division officers, led by Deputy Lawyer Basic Todd Blanche.
The Epstein case made worldwide headlines once more after the DOJ and FBI issued a memo July 6 concluding that the 66-year-old killed himself in lockup and didn’t have a “client list” of highly effective acquaintances who engaged in illicit intercourse with ladies as younger as 14 — opposite to widespread hypothesis.
Trump has brushed apart questions on whether or not he’ll grant Maxwell clemency in alternate for her testimony, saying Monday that nobody has formally requested a pardon on the British-born socialite’s behalf.
Final week, a South Florida federal choose shot down an administration request to launch grand jury testimony within the investigation that preceded the Epstein plea deal.
