The Department of Justice on Monday asked the Supreme Court to reject an appeal request from Ghislaine Maxwell, the one-time girlfriend and associate of late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, stating that her argument against her conviction is incorrect.
Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for conspiring with and aiding Epstein in sexually abusing underage girls, says that a co-conspirator's clause included in a 2007 non-prosecution agreement with Florida federal prosecutors barred her from being prosecuted in New York, reports ABC News.
"That contention is incorrect, and petitioner does not show that it would succeed in any court of appeals," U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, while responding to Maxwell's request.
A federal appeals court, as well as a district court, have already rejected her argument.
Maxwell, 63, contends that the language of Epstein's non-prosecution agreement, while limited to the Southern District of Florida, included a clause that should have prevented her prosecution in any federal district.
According to the co-conspirator clause, if "Epstein successfully fulfills all of the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to" four Epstein assistants, but Maxwell was not one of the four women who were named.
"Despite the existence of a non-prosecution agreement promising in plain language that the United States would not prosecute any co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein, the United States in fact prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell as a co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein," her attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court, filed in April.
The DOJ, however, on Monday argued in its response that the U.S. Attorney's office in Florida, which was at the time led by R. Alexander Acosta, didn't intend to block other federal districts from prosecuting Epstein's co-conspirators and could not do so without the districts' approval or that of the DOJ's Criminal Division.
"There is no indication here that anyone involved in negotiating Epstein's NPA obtained the necessary approval for binding other USAOs or thought it was necessary," the DOJ said in the response.
Further, the DOJ said that even if the clause could be read to apply nationwide, there is no evidence that those who negotiated the non-prosecuting agreement intended for the clause to benefit Maxwell, who is "at most, an incidental third-party beneficiary of the agreement."
Sauer added that the government was "not even aware of [Maxwell's] role in Epstein's scheme at that time."
On Monday, David Oscar Markus, one of Maxwell's attorneys, said he would be surprised if President Donald Trump knew lawyers at the DOJ were asking the Supreme Court to allow the government to break the deal it reached with Epstein.
"He's the ultimate dealmaker — and I'm sure he'd agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it," Markus said. "With all the talk about who's being prosecuted and who isn't, it's especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the government made and broke."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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