Ghislaine Maxwell is set to appeal her sex trafficking conviction by saying she was held in such a brutal jail while on trial she was unable to mount an effective defence.
Ghislaine Maxwell is set to appeal her sex trafficking conviction by saying she was held in such a brutal jail while on trial she was unable to mount an effective defence
The 61-year-old disgraced socialite – languishing as inmate 02879-509 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida, after being sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking and grooming underage girls for her late paedophile partner Jeffrey Epstein – will reportedly state she was held in “inhumane” conditions while trying to fight for her freedom in court.
Her lawyer Arthur L Aidala – who is also representing Harvey Weinstein in his appeal against his conviction in New York – said in a statement on Tuesday (28.02.23): “By the time of trial, (Maxwell) was so disoriented and diminished that she was unable meaningfully to assist in her own defence, much less to testify.”
Court papers are expected to argue Maxwell was subjected to “sleep deprivation”, “malnorishment” and living with “vermin in her cell” amid “deplorable conditions”, according to Page Six.
Maxwell’s appeal documents, which are expected to run to hundreds of pages, must be filed by the end of Tuesday at the federal court in New York where she was found guilty last January following a trial.
Her lawyer said last month Maxwell had been “so mistreated during her period of incarceration” that it “violated so many of her constitutional rights to defend herself”.
He added: “She was malnourished. And yet she’s supposed to sit for a trial (with her) life on the line… In the United States of America, anyone who’s accused of any crime should not be abused by the US government the way she was abused.”
In previous legal filings Maxwell’s lawyers said while awaiting trial in New York she was “withering away” to a “shell of her former self”.
They claimed her hair was falling out and she was being forced to scrub showers as punishment – while Maxwell said every dinner she was given melted to plastic in the microwave.
She has also said she was kept awake by a torch being shone in her face every 15 minutes and stated the water in prison was brown with pollution.
Maxwell is also thought to be set to use her appeal to repeat her claim that a juror in her case, Scotty David, “concealed” the fact they had experienced childhood sexual abuse and used it to persuade the other jurors of her guilt.
She was held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre during her trial – the same jail where Epstein was found dead aged 66 in 2019 from an apparent suicide – before being transferred to Tallahassee after her conviction, where she is working six hours a day at the library to pass time.
Tagged in Harvey Weinstein