Judge calls Maxwell’s habeas claims “demonstrably meritless”
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to overturn her sex-trafficking conviction and be freed from a 20-year prison sentence, ruling that her habeas petition was “demonstrably meritless.”
U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, based her challenge on “speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods.” Maxwell had described her conviction as a “complete miscarriage of justice.”
“Maxwell’s petition falls very far from the mark,” Engelmayer wrote. “There is no fact that Maxwell fairly puts in dispute that has any potential to disturb the outcome of her trial.”
Maxwell filed the habeas petition last December, maintaining that information that would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld and that false testimony was presented to the jury. She argued the case rested on “substantial new evidence” and sought to set aside her conviction and win release from the 20-year prison sentence resulting from it.
Engelmayer rejected those assertions in a written ruling, concluding that the request was “demonstrably meritless” and that any facts Maxwell put forward could not disturb the outcome of the trial that produced her conviction.
The ruling keeps Maxwell in custody. Her 2021 conviction stemmed from her role in sex trafficking alongside Jeffrey Epstein, her former boyfriend and longtime associate.