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MANHATTAN (CN) — Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell opposes the Department of Justice’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from her criminal case as part of the Trump administration’s effort to bring daylight to the alleged international sex trafficking operation of the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not,” her attorneys wrote in a nine-page brief filed Tuesday afternoon in the Southern District of New York. “Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain.”
Represented by Miami attorney David Oscar Markus, Maxwell claims the Manhattan federal judge presiding over the case denied her requests to review the grand jury material to assess whether to object to its release, despite no opposition from prosecutors.
“As a result, Ghislaine Maxwell has not seen the material and cannot take an informed position,” her attorneys wrote in the brief.
Citing her pending appeal of her conviction to the Supreme Court, Maxwell says the release of unreviewed grand jury material could be damaging to her ongoing litigation.
“The reputational harm from releasing incomplete, potentially misleading grand jury testimony, untested by cross-examination, would be severe and irrevocable,” the attorneys wrote in the brief.
Maxwell faced up to 55 years in prison after a New York jury convicted her on five counts in December 2021, but then-U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan sentenced her to 20 years in prison.
Last week, shortly after she was interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Maxwell was transferred from the Florida prison where she had been serving out her sentence to a minimum security prison camp in Texas, where she joins other high-profile white collar convicts including Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and “Real Housewives” personality Jen Shah.
The Trump administration has urged the Supreme Court to reject Maxwell’s petition, stating that co-conspirators clause in Epstein’s 2008 sweetheart plea deal was meant to protect victims. The White House said the United States referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
President Donald Trump has faced harsh scrutiny from his typically steadfast base when the Justice Department announced it wouldn’t be releasing a supposed list of high-powered individuals connected to Epstein. The fervor only grew after The Wall Street Journal published a bawdy birthday card to Epstein signed with Trump’s name.
If documents from the Epstein investigation are released, it’s unlikely that they would be helpful in Maxwell’s appeal at the Supreme Court, where the justices will be solely focused on technical legal questions related to the purported immunity granted to Epstein’s co-conspirators.
The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday issued congressional subpoenas to former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and eight other former White House officials as it ramps up a probe into Epstein and Maxwell, amid the push for transparency from the government on its investigation of the cases and despite resistance from House Republican leadership and Trump.
Epstein’s estate filed a letter separately on Tuesday, taking no position regarding the government’s motion to unseal grand jury materials from his case, subject to any redactions to protect the identities of his victims.
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