(NewsNation) — Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to overturn her conviction and two decade prison sentence for helping disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls on the premise that she was shielded under a plea deal prosecutors previously struck with Epstein.
Maxwell did not attend, instead heard the hearing remotely from a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida where she is serving her sentence.
The evidence presented by Maxwell’s lawyers mostly focus on a non-prosecution agreement that was part of a plea deal Epstein made with Alexander Acosta, who then served as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
That deal included any co-conspirators, defense lawyers argued.
“The plea agreement applies to preclude this prosecution,” Diana Fabi Samson, Maxwell’s attorney told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. “Denying the viability of this plea agreement strikes a dagger in the heart of the trust between the government and its citizens regarding plea agreements.”
That deal is far-reaching across every jurisdiction, the defense lawyer argued.
But prosecutors pushed back on the argument saying their office in New York was not bound by the prior agreement with Epstein, and that it did not apply to Maxwell.
“The central promise in the non-prosecution agreement is a promise by the Southern District of Florida not to prosecute Epstein in that district,” assistant U.S. attorney Andrew Rohrbach said. “This is a document entered into by the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida intended to bind the Southern District of Florida and that district alone.”
Maxwell’s defense team had previously argued that she did not receive a fair trial and didn’t testify because she was treated poorly.
Her lawyers have claimed that at least one juror failed to disclose in a pretrial questionnaire that he was a victim of sexual abuse, which Maxwell’s lawyers say should have disqualified him from sitting on the jury.
Maxwell’s attorneys also argued in their written appeal that prosecutors only went after Maxwell because Epstein died unexpectedly and they needed Maxwell to “satisfy public outrage.”
Maxwell’s attorneys say if her conviction is not overturned then she should be given a new trial or resentenced.
Jurors found Maxwell, 62, guilty in December 2021 of five charges for recruiting and grooming four underage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison and at her sentencing, the judge said Maxwell’s conduct in luring the girls was “heinous and predatory.”
Maxwell is eligible for release in July 2037. She has refused to apologize to her victims, instead maintaining her innocence.
Earlier this year hundreds of documents were unsealed containing information about Epstein and his associates. Maxwell was named in those documents.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
