Judge upholds Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking conviction

A trial judge has concluded there was sufficient proof to convict Ghislaine Maxwell of intercourse trafficking

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated 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, but she additionally gave Maxwell a authorized victory by concluding that three conspiracy counts charged the identical crime and she will solely be sentenced for one.

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

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

Maxwell, 60, was convicted of recruiting teenage ladies 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 5 counts she was convicted on after concluding that two conspiracy counts had been duplicates of the third.

“This authorized conclusion on no account calls into question 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 traffic underage women for sexual abuse,” Nathan wrote.

The reduction of counts from five to 3 was not anticipated to have much impact on the sentencing, when Maxwell may face a sentence starting from several years to decades in prison.

Legal professionals for Maxwell did not return messages requesting remark. Prosecutors declined remark.

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

The juror had stated he “skimmed way too quick” through the questionnaire and didn't deliberately give the mistaken answer to a query about intercourse abuse.

In refusing to toss the verdict, Nathan said the juror’s failure to reveal his prior sexual abuse through the jury choice process was extremely unfortunate, however not deliberate.

The decide also concluded the juror “harbored no bias toward the defendant and could serve as a good and impartial juror.”

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