Epstein accomplice Ghislane Maxwell sues for prison release

Ghislaine Maxwell, accomplice of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sued on Wednesday to have her convictions voided and to be released from prison, court records showed.

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for offenses including sex trafficking a minor, made the long-shot legal bid in a Manhattan court.

The 63-year-old British former socialite was jailed in 2022 for recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

In the lengthy filing, Maxwell argues that "newly discovered evidence" proves that she "did not receive a fair trial by independent jurors coming to Court with an open mind."

Proceedings of the type brought by Maxwell are routinely denied by judges and are often the last-ditch option available to offenders to have their convictions overturned.

Maxwell submitted the filing herself, not in the name of a lawyer.

"If the jury had heard of the new evidence of the collusion between the plaintiff's lawyers and the Government to conceal evidence and the prosecutorial misconduct they would not have convicted," she wrote.

In October, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Maxwell of her sex trafficking conviction.

The top court rejected Maxwell's appeal without comment.

© Agence France-Presse