Choose upholds Ghislaine Maxwell’s intercourse trafficking conviction

A trial decide has concluded there was sufficient evidence to convict Ghislaine Maxwell of sex trafficking

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Related Press

29 April 2022, 22:26

• 3 min read

NEW YORK -- A choose concluded Friday that there was sufficient evidence to convict British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell of sex trafficking girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, however she additionally gave Maxwell a legal victory by concluding that three conspiracy counts charged the same crime and she will solely be sentenced for one.

U.S. District Decide Alison J. Nathan mentioned in her written ruling that the jury’s guilty verdicts had been “readily supported” by in depth witness testimony and documentary evidence at a one-month trial that concluded in December.

Attorneys for Maxwell had requested her to reject the decision on a number of grounds, together with inadequate evidence.

Maxwell, 60, was convicted of recruiting teenage girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse from 1994 to 2004.

Nathan said that she'll only sentence Maxwell in late June on three of the five counts she was convicted on after concluding that two conspiracy counts have been duplicates of the third.

“This authorized conclusion in no way calls into query the factual findings made by the jury. Reasonably, it underscores that the jury unanimously discovered — three times over — that the Defendant is guilty of conspiring with Epstein to entice, transport, and visitors underage girls for sexual abuse,” Nathan wrote.

The discount of counts from 5 to 3 was not expected to have a lot impact on the sentencing, when Maxwell might face a sentence starting from several years to decades in jail.

Attorneys for Maxwell didn't return messages requesting comment. Prosecutors declined remark.

Earlier this month, the judge refused to toss out Maxwell's conviction after a juror disclosed to other jurors throughout jury deliberations that he had been sexually abused as a child although he had not revealed that reality in response to questions about prior sex abuse posed in a written questionnaire.

The juror had mentioned he “skimmed method too quick” via the questionnaire and did not deliberately give the fallacious reply to a query about intercourse abuse.

In refusing to toss the decision, Nathan mentioned the juror’s failure to disclose his prior sexual abuse in the course of the jury choice course of was extremely unlucky, however not deliberate.

The decide also concluded the juror “harbored no bias toward the defendant and will function a good and neutral juror.”

Maxwell, arrested in July 2020, has remained incarcerated. Epstein was 66 when he took his own life in a federal jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking trial.