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A US appeals court has rejected an appeal from Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell challenging her conviction for recruiting and grooming women and girls for the late disgraced financier.
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of facilitating Epstein’s abuse during a period between 1994 and 2004, where she helped identify women and girls as young as 14, groom them, lure them to Epstein properties, and urge them into interactions with Epstein that turned into sexual abuse.
There was “no error” in the original conviction and 20-year prison sentence that followed the charges in 2022, Judge José A Cabranes wrote in a ruling posted Tuesday for a three-judge panel for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
"We are obviously very disappointed by the court’s decision and we vehemently disagree with the outcome," Maxwell’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said in a statement to Reuters. "We are cautiously optimistic that Ghislaine will get the justice she deserves from the Supreme Court of the United States."
Maxwell had argued in March that her conviction “should never have been prosecuted” because of a “weird” 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors, that saw the financier plead guilty to a state charge and get a light jail sentence.
The appeals court found the agreement didn’t bind federal prosecutors in other jurisdictions.
The British socialite also argued the jury that oversaw her case was compromised by a juror who didn’t disclose he had been sexually abused as a child, and that the court gave Maxwell an excessive sentence to “satisfy public outrage.”
The 2nd Circuit dismissed these claims as well.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail, before he could go on trial.
Critics have argued the justice system failed Epstein’s numerous victims by only convicting Maxwell.
“It was really, really shocking,” journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley, author of new book The Lasting Harm, recently told The Independent. “This was the only trial. This was the only thing that has happened to offer a shred of justice. And even then, the courts managed to take that away from the victims by treating them so badly during the court process.”
