A sex trader who was recently sentenced to 20-years in prison, has appealed her conviction
According to paperwork filed at Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the disgraced British socialite GhislaineMaxwell appealed her recent convictions on five counts related to sex traficking and the 20 year sentence she was given last month.
While the full text of the appeal has not been made public, Maxwell’s lawyer Bobbi Sternheim claimed she could not properly prepare her case because she lacked sufficient resources while incarcerated and insisted she could not possibly receive a fair trial given the media attention surrounding the events.
Sternheim also stated that one juror, who was accused of concealing his history as a child victim to sexual abuse in childhood from the court’s attention, shouldn’t have been seated. An earlier effort to secure a retrial based on that juror’s personal history failed, with Judge Allison Nathan ruling he had made an “honest mistake”jury questionnaire, and denied the slip-up required another trial.
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Maxwell is sentenced for Epstein’s complicity
Maxwell received a sentence of 20 years imprisonment plus 5 years probation, and fines totaling $750,000. However, she won’t have to make restitution for her victims who had already been paid money through a compensation program that was related to Epstein.
Judge Nathan disagreed with Maxwell’s attorney, arguing she had had more access to legal resources while in prison than most inmates and received better treatment than “the typical pretrial detainee at the [Metropolitan Detention Center] during the pandemic.”
Jeffrey Epstein, the former prosecutor for him was found guilty of five out of six charges in December. They all relate to the trafficking of underage girls for unlawful sexual activities. Her perjury charges are two, which have not been prosecuted.
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Ghislaine Maxwell’s family ‘fear for her safety’
In addition to her lawyers, Maxwell’s family have been campaigning heavily for the guilty verdicts to be overturned, insisting their sister is not safe in jail. Epstein, the ex-partner, was mysteriously killed while she was being held in pretrial detention in August 2019. He was hanged to death.
Jean-Luc Brunel (an Epstein suspect) was found hanging in his prison cell while awaiting the outcome of his trial for sex traficking in France.
