A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an effort by Ghislaine Maxwell to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and vacate her 20-year prison sentence, calling her claims of new evidence and legal misconduct completely unfounded, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer dismissed Maxwell’s habeas corpus petition, ruling that her assertions relied on “speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods.”
Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted in December 2021 for her role in recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Epstein to abuse.
In her petition filed last December, Maxwell maintained that information that would have resulted in her exoneration was withheld and that false testimony was presented to the jury. She argued that the cumulative effect of the constitutional violations resulted in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”
According to the AP, Engelmayer ruled in a written decision that the petition was “demonstrably meritless” and failed to present any viable challenge to the verdict.
“Maxwell’s petition falls very far from the mark,” Engelmayer said. “There is no fact that Maxwell fairly puts in dispute that has any potential to disturb the outcome of her trial.”
Habeas petitions are often filed as a last resort to protect against unlawful confinement after standard appeals have been exhausted, as occurred following Maxwell’s conviction and sentencing.
Epstein, a millionaire financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. Ordered detained until trial, he was found dead in his cell at a New York federal jail in August 2019, in a death ruled a suicide.
Maxwell, a British socialite, was arrested a year later. She was interviewed by the Justice Department’s second-in-command in July 2025 and was soon afterward moved from a federal prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas, where she continues to serve her sentence.
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