The Department of Justice has requested that the Supreme Court reject Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her sex trafficking conviction.
“Petitioner renews her contention that Epstein’s nonprosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida barred petitioner’s prosecution by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the brief. “That contention is incorrect, and petitioner does not show that it would succeed in any court of appeals. This case would also be an unsuitable vehicle for addressing the matters raised in the petition for a writ of certiorari. This Court has previously denied certiorari in a case raising a similar claim.”
“It would be extremely strange if the [non-prosecution agreement] left Epstein himself open to federal prosecution in another district—as eventually occurred— while protecting his coconspirators from prosecution anywhere,” Sauer added.
Maxwell’s April appeal claimed that the United States violated its non-prosecution agreement by prosecuting her. “Only because the United States did so in the Second Circuit and not elsewhere, her motion to dismiss the indictment was denied, her trial proceeded, and she is now serving a 20-year sentence,” the petition read.
“In light of the disparity in how the circuit courts interpret the enforceability of a promise made by the ‘United States,’ Maxwell’s motion to dismiss would have been granted if she had been charged in at least four other circuits (plus the Eleventh, where Epstein’s agreement was entered into),” the petition stated, requesting that the Supreme Court address the “inconsistency in the law by which the same promise by the United States means different things in different places.”
In 2021, Maxwell was found guilty on five charges, including: conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts; conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; sex trafficking conspiracy; and sex trafficking of a minor.
