Judge refuses to toss Maxwell conviction
By: Bart Jansen
USA Today
..... A federal judge rejected Ghislaine Maxwell's request to throw out her five felony convictions from her association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said Maxwell was convicted of "the sexual abuse of young girls over the course of a decade" with "trial evidence of her guilt that was overwhelming."
..... In denying her request on August 24, [2026] Engelmayer wrote: "Maxwell's claims are all merit-less and all or almost all are frivolous."
..... Maxwell, 64, is serving a 20-eyar prison sentence for helping Epstein, who died in person in August 2019. She represented herself in challenging her December 2021 conviction.
..... The Epstein case remains contentious because the Justice Department has refused to release all the documents associated with his investigation, despite a law passed by congress demanding they be made public.
..... Attorney Genial Todd Blanche has said all relevant documents have been released, but women who said they were abused by Epstein continue to push for the names of possible accomplices.
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Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas after meeting with Blanche when he was deputy attorney general. Her lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her conviction while also seeking a pardon or commutation for her from President Donald Trump.
..... The Supreme Court rejected Maxwell's appeal in October 2025.
..... Maxwell made six new claims the judge said she should have raised in her appeal. Maxwell argued the lawyers of women who accused Epstein of abuse acted like prosecutors, that inaccurate evidence at trial cerated the impression she profited from her conspiracy, and that Epstein's contact book should have been excluded from the trial.
..... Enelmayer said the arguments were barred because she should have raised them in her direct appeals. But he said she also hadn't shown that the arguments would have yielded a different outcome in her "lengthy and rambling" filing.