Ghislaine Maxwell seeks release from jail, citing ‘new evidence’

New York: Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and long-time associate Ghislaine Maxwell has asked a federal judge to set aside her sex-trafficking conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, saying “substantial new evidence” has emerged proving that constitutional violations spoiled her trial.

Maxwell maintained in a habeas petition she has promised to file since August that information that would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld and false testimony was presented to the jury. She said the cumulative effect of the constitutional violations resulted in a “complete miscarriage of justice”.

A writ of habeas corpus petition is a legal request for a court to review the legality of someone’s detention, demanding that the custodian (such as a prison official) bring the prisoner before a judge to justify the imprisonment. It serves as a fundamental safeguard against unlawful confinement and arbitrary detention by ensuring due process.

Filed by or on behalf of someone in custody, it challenges constitutional violations, such as ineffective legal counsel or unfair trials, and seeks release or other relief, often as a last resort after appeals are exhausted.

“Since the conclusion of her trial, substantial new evidence has emerged from related civil actions, government disclosures, investigative reports and documents demonstrating constitutional violations that undermined the fairness of her proceeding,” the filing in a Manhattan federal court said. “In the light of the full evidentiary record, no reasonable juror would have convicted her.”

The filing came just two days before records in her case were scheduled to be released publicly as a result of US President Donald Trump’s signing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The law, signed after months of public and political pressure, requires the Justice Department to provide the public with Epstein-related records by December 19.

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Forced to act by the new transparency law, the Justice Department has said it plans to release 18 categories of investigative materials gathered in the massive sex-trafficking probe, including search warrants, financial records, notes from interviews with victims, and data from electronic devices.

Epstein, a multimillionaire financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex-trafficking charges. A month later, he was found dead in his cell at a New York federal jail and the death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell, a British socialite, was arrested a year later and convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021. She was interviewed by the Justice Department’s second-in-command in July and was soon afterwards moved from a federal prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas.