US Supreme Court rejects appeal from Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell

WASHINGTON

The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell's bid to dismiss her conviction on charges related to grooming young girls for Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender who died in prison in 2019.

The top court's denial of what is known as a writ of certiorari leaves in place Maxwel''s conviction and her 20-year prison sentence. The Supreme Court's brief one-line order did not specify which judges, if any, dissented.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on charges related to procuring girls, some as young as 14 years old, for Epstein. Her attorneys attempted to argue that what is known as a non-prosecution agreement that Epstein struck with prosecutors in Florida in which the US attorney agreed not to prosecute him or co-conspirators should apply to one of the charges on which Maxwell was convicted in New York.

Justice Department attorneys argued that the agreement did not bind federal prosecutors in New York, because the US attorney in New York did not have the power to extend the agreement beyond his jurisdiction.

US Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a court filing that in order for the pact to extend beyond the state of Florida, permission had to have been sought from superiors, but no evidence of that was found.

- Maxwell in minimum security prison

Maxwell is currently being held at a minimum security facility in Texas. She was transferred there roughly one week after she sat down with senior Justice Department official Todd Blanche for two days of interviews.

Authorities have not said why she was transferred, though she would have needed a waiver to be sent to a minimum security facility as a convicted sex offender.

Epstein mingled with the wealthy and powerful, including prominent politicians, for decades before pleading guilty in 2008 to felony solicitation and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution. He was arrested for a second time in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking minors, and was found dead in his prison cell roughly a month after being taken into custody.

Authorities have maintained that Epstein killed himself by hanging, though public skepticism over the circumstances of his death has continued to mount.

Trump's MAGA allies have for years loudly clamored for the release of the government's Epstein records as they speculate that the files incriminate high-profile individuals.

The Justice Department's public determination in July that Epstein was not murdered in his jail cell in 2019 and its claim that he had no "client list" set off the largest rift within Trump's MAGA, or Make America Great Again, base.