Judge: Ghislaine Maxwell's Bid for Freedom Is 'Meritless'

Ghislaine Maxwell just hit another legal dead end. A federal judge in New York on Tuesday refused to overturn her conviction and 20-year sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, reports Reuters. Maxwell made the case that her conviction was a miscarriage of justice, but US District Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that her claims were based on "speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods," per the AP.

Maxwell, 64, representing herself, had asked the court to throw out her 2021 conviction via a habeas corpus petition, asserting that information that could have cleared her was withheld from her trial. She also said her due process rights were violated because lawyers for Epstein's accusers effectively acted as government prosecutors. Engelmayer said the supposed new evidence presented was mostly irrelevant. "Maxwell's petition falls very far from the mark," Engelmayer wrote, adding that her claims were "demonstrably meritless."