After months of campaigning for a retrial, Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction will remain after the court denied her request.
In December last year, Maxwell was found guilty on charges alleging she enticed, groomed, and sexually abused underage girls with Jeffrey Epstein, her former boyfriend.
Maxwell has been campaigning for a retrial after it was found that one of the jurors that decided her original conviction was a victim of child sexual abuse.
The sixty-year-old’s push for a new trial has been quashed, despite her argument that the juror’s past may have led to bias that contributed to her conviction.
The juror claimed he simply “skimmed way too fast” through the questionnaire, but did not intentionally provide false information about his past. “I didn’t lie in order to get on this jury,” he said.
US District Judge Alison Nathan said the situation was an honest mistake, but a “highly unfortunate” one at that. “He appeared to testify frankly and honestly, even when the answers he gave were the cause of personal embarrassment and regret,” Nathan said.
“The Court thus credits his testimony that he was distracted as he filled out the questionnaire and skimmed way too fast, leading him to misunderstand some of the questions.”
Maxwell’s prison sentence of up to 65 years will remain for her alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of underage girls.
At her original trial, the court heard that Maxwell befriended the girls, knowingly providing Epstein with an opportunity to sexually abuse them.
The defence argued that Maxwell was simply a scapegoat and was innocent of the charges.