Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer tell appeals judges that Jeffrey Epstein’s Florida plea deal protects her

NEW YORK (AP) — Imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to toss out her sex trafficking conviction and 20-year prison sentence, saying Jeffrey Epstein’s 2007 non-prosecution deal with a U.S. attorney in Florida should have prevented her prosecution.

Attorney Diana Fabi Samson’s argument was repeatedly challenged by one judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before the three-judge panel reserved decision.

Lawyers for Maxwell are challenging her December 2021 conviction on multiple grounds, but the only topic at oral arguments was whether the deal Epstein struck in Florida to prevent a federal case against him there also protected Maxwell in New York. Samson said it did. A prosecutor said it didn’t.

Maxwell, 62, is serving her sentence at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, where yoga, Pilates and movies are available.

Epstein’s lawyers made a similar argument about the force of his non-prosecution deal in Florida after his July, 2019, sex trafficking arrest in Manhattan. But the legal question became moot in his case after he took his own life a month later in a federal lockup as he awaited trial.

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