Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell opposes release of her grand jury materials
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Ghislaine Maxwell depicted standing at a podium during her sentencing in New York City in a courtroom sketch in 2022.
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NEW YORK – Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted in 2021 of helping him sexually abuse teenage girls, said on Aug 5 she opposed the US government’s bid to release transcripts of proceedings before the grand jury that indicted her.
In a court filing, Maxwell’s lawyers said the release of the materials would jeopardise a potential re-trial if she succeeds in persuading the US Supreme Court to overturn her conviction.
“The reputational harm from releasing incomplete, potentially misleading grand jury testimony, untested by cross-examination, would be severe and irrevocable,” her lawyers wrote.
US President Donald Trump in July instructed US Attorney-General Pam Bondi to seek the release of the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury material, as he sought to quell discontent
Mr Trump, a Republican, had promised to make public Epstein-related files if re-elected and accused Democrats of covering up the truth. But in July, the US Justice Department said a previously touted Epstein client list did not exist, angering Mr Trump’s supporters.
Grand juries meet in secret to guard against interference in criminal investigations, and records of their proceedings cannot be disclosed without a judge’s permission.
The US Justice Department has cited what it calls continuing public interest in the cases in asking Manhattan-based judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer to authorise the disclosure of the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury transcripts. It is unclear whether the public would learn anything new or noteworthy if such material were released.
Earlier on Aug 5, the US Justice Department said in a court filing that much of the testimony from law enforcement officers at Maxwell’s grand jury proceedings in 2020 was corroborated by the victims and witnesses who testified publicly at her trial the following year.
Lawyers for Epstein and his alleged victims are also due to share their views on the potential disclosures with the court on Aug 5. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence
“Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive,” Maxwell’s lawyers wrote.
Her lawyers have told the Supreme Court that her conviction was invalid because a non-prosecution and plea agreement that federal prosecutors had made with Epstein in Florida in 2007 also shielded his associates. The Court is due to consider whether to take up the appeal in late September.
In July, Deputy US Attorney-General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell to see if she had any information about other people who may have committed crimes. Neither party has provided a detailed account of what they discussed. Maxwell last week was moved from a prison in Florida
