A federal appeals court on Sept. 17 dismissed an appeal from Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, finding that a non-prosecution agreement that Epstein reached with prosecutors did not cover Maxwell.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also said that Maxwell’s crimes took place within the statute of limitations.
Jurors also said Maxwell violated laws barring sex trafficking of minors.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She is still behind bars.
In an appeal, Maxwell said that the counts should be dismissed because of the non-prosecution agreement (NPA) Epstein reached with Department of Justice prosecutors in Florida in which he pled guilty to a count of procuring minors for prostitution in exchange for other charges being dropped.
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019. It was ruled a suicide.
The agreement said in part that the Department of Justice would not bring criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.
“There is nothing in the NPA that affirmatively shows that the NPA was intended to bind multiple districts. Instead, where the NPA is not silent, the agreement’s scope is expressly limited to the Southern District of Florida,” Cabranes said. “The NPA makes clear that if Epstein fulfilled his obligations, he would no longer face charges in that district.”
The history of negotiations for the agreement also do not show the pact was intended to restrict prosecutors elsewhere, according to the appeals court. It noted that the manual for U.S. attorneys in operation at the time stated that “no district or division shall make any agreement, including any agreement not to prosecute, which purports to bind any other district(s) or division without the express written approval of the United States Attorney(s) in each affected district and/or the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division.”
Cabranes also turned down arguments that the charges fell outside the statute of limitations. He pointed to a 2003 law that says there is no statute of limitations for prosecuting offenses involving serious crimes against children “during the life of a child or for ten years after the offense, whichever is longer.”
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, who now serves on Second Circuit, oversaw Maxwell’s case and sentenced her.
U.S. Circuit Judges Richard C. Wesley and Raymond J. Lohier Jr. were also assigned to the case, and sided with Cabranes.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment. An email from The Epoch Times to a lawyer representing Maxwell bounced back.
The unanimous Second Circuit panel said Nathan did not abuse her discretion in denying Maxwell’s motion for a new trial after it was found that one juror did not accurately respond to some questions before being chosen, because the juror would not have been struck if he had provided accurate responses.
The panel also upheld the district judge’s sentence, finding that she adequately applied a sentencing enhancement because Maxwell supervised another person, based on witness testimony, and that she explained why she handed down the sentence.
“With respect to the length of the sentence, the district court properly discussed the sentencing factors when imposing the sentence, and described, at length, Maxwell’s ‘pivotal role in facilitating the abuse of the underaged girls through a series of deceptive tactics,’” Cabranes said.
“The district court recognized that the sentence ’must reflect the gravity of Ms. Maxwell’s conduct, of Ms. Maxwell’s offense, the pivotal role she played in facilitating the offense, and the significant and lasting harm it inflicted.‘ And the district court explained that ’a very serious, a very significant sentence is necessary to achieve the purposes of punishment' under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
“In sum, the district court did not err by failing to adequately explain its sentence.”
