(CNN) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, urged the Supreme Court on Monday to take up her pending appeal and overturn her sex-trafficking conviction, claiming she was covered by an agreement Epstein made with federal authorities that shielded her from prosecution.
“This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” Maxwell’s attorneys told the justices in a new brief.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse underage girls. She has recently met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for questioning amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
Those talks were not mentioned in the latest Supreme Court filing.
“President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal – and surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it,” Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a statement. “We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the president himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted.”
In her appeal at the Supreme Court, filed in April, Maxwell argues she should have been covered by a non-prosecution agreement Epstein secured as part of his agreement to plead guilty. The New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Maxwell, finding that the agreement made with prosecutors in Florida did not bind the authorities in New York.
Maxwell’s attorney has argued that appeals courts have taken different approaches to the issue of whether a non-prosecution agreement with the United States is nationally binding. The Supreme Court will likely decide this fall whether to grant the case.
“The government’s argument, across the board, is essentially an appeal to what it wishes the agreement had said, rather than what it actually says,” Maxwell told the Supreme Court. “Of course, if wishful thinking were the standard, the whole NPA would have been thrown out long ago.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges and was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019 but died by suicide in prison a month later.
The Trump administration has been defending the charges and conviction at the Supreme Court, even as the Justice Department has met with Maxwell amid the spiraling controversy over the handling of the Epstein documents.
“Petitioner was not a party to the relevant agreement,” the Justice Department told the Supreme Court in a brief filed on July 14. “Only Epstein and the Florida USAO were parties.”
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