WASHINGTON — Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney Monday renewed his request that the Supreme Court overturn her 2021 conviction in New York for recruiting and grooming multiple teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse for over a decade.
In a new filing, Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Markus, repeated arguments he made in previous filings that a non-prosecution agreement Epstein made with federal prosecutors in Florida should apply to Maxwell’s case in New York and any other part of the United States.
The filing includes no new information about Maxwell’s two days of meetings last week with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Maxwell's lawyer asked the Supreme Court to take up her case in April. Markus argues that the Supreme Court should hear the case because there is disagreement in the federal courts over whether a non-prosecution agreement applies only to the U.S. Attorney’s office that signs it or to federal prosecutors nationwide.
Justice Department lawyers responded earlier this month in a filing of their own and urged the court not to consider the case. Monday's filing from Markus contained his response to the government's arguments.
The Supreme Court, which is on its summer recess, is unlikely to act on Maxwell’s case for months.
Federal prosecutors have argued that the agreement applies only to southern Florida, where it was made. The federal judge who oversaw Maxwell’s 2021 trial in New York, Judge Alison Nathan, agreed.
Nathan wrote in a ruling that a Justice Department review found that no special promises were made to Maxwell that she would not be prosecuted federally outside South Florida. Markus argued that Maxwell did receive those assurances.
“This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” he wrote. “Plea agreements are supposed to be strictly construed against the government, yet here the government isn’t even asking for the benefit of the doubt; it is asking for a blank check to rewrite its own promise after the fact.”
Nathan also noted in her 2021 ruling that the Florida non-prosecution agreement covered Epstein’s criminal activity from 2001 to 2007. Maxwell was prosecuted in New York for her conduct from 1994 to 1997, “some four years before the period covered by the Southern District of Florida investigation.”
Markus said in a statement that he was appealing to both the Supreme Court and President Donald Trump for help with Maxwell's case. The Supreme Court could overturn Maxwell's conviction in New York and order a new federal trial. Trump could commute Maxwell's sentence or pardon her.
"President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal," Markus said. "And surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it."
"We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court," he added, "but to the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted.”
