Maxwell, a former British socialite and Epstein’s accomplice, says her human trafficking conviction was a “miscarriage of justice”.
Published December 18, 2025
Ghislaine Maxwell, the ex-girlfriend and co-defendant of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has asked a federal judge in the United States to vacate her sex trafficking conviction and vacate her 20-year prison sentence.
Maxwell launched what could have been a long-term legal bid in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday, saying “substantial new evidence” had emerged proving his 2021 trial on charges of recruiting underage girls for Epstein, the wealthy financier who died in 2019, was marred by constitutional violations.
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Ms Maxwell, 63, argued in a lengthy submission that “newly discovered evidence” proves she “did not receive a fair trial by an independent jury who came to court with an open mind.”
“Had the jury heard new evidence of a conspiracy between plaintiff’s attorneys and the government to destroy evidence and commit prosecutorial misconduct, it would not have resulted in a conviction,” Maxwell wrote.
She said the cumulative effect of the constitutional violations had resulted in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”
Mr. Maxwell filed his own submission, not the name of an attorney.
Lawsuits of this type brought by Maxwell are routinely dismissed by judges and are often the last option available to criminals to overturn their convictions, AFP reported.
Maxwell’s filing also comes days before her case records are scheduled to be released to the public as a result of US President Donald Trump’s signing of the Epstein File Transparency Act.
The law, signed by President Trump after months of public and political pressure on his administration, requires the Justice Department to provide records related to Epstein to the public by Dec. 19.
The circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death and his influential social circle, which spans the highest echelons of American business and politics, have also fueled conspiracy theories about a possible cover-up and anonymous accomplices.
Critics also continue to pressure Trump to address his issues. Close it once relationship with Epstein.
The Justice Department announced that it plans to release 18 categories of investigative materials collected during a massive sex trafficking investigation, including search warrants, financial records, notes from interviews with victims, and electronic device data.
Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019, but was found dead in his cell at a New York federal prison a month later, a suicide ruled a suicide.
Maxwell, once a prominent British socialite, was arrested a year later and convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021.
In July, she was interviewed for the position of deputy commander in the Department of Justice, and shortly thereafter was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a POW camp in Texas.
Maxwell’s transfer from Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee, a low-security prison in Florida, to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, occurred without explanation at the time.
