NEW YORK — Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday urged a U.S. appeals courtroom to dam the discharge of a deposition on the grounds it might destroy her probability for a good trial on prison expenses she aided the late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of women.
Maxwell’s deposition was taken in April 2016 for a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit in opposition to the British socialite by Virginia Giuffre, who stated Epstein saved her as a “intercourse slave” with Maxwell’s help.
In a submitting with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals in Manhattan, Maxwell’s attorneys stated a decrease courtroom order to unseal the deposition and different paperwork from that case threatened her constitutional proper to a good trial by an neutral jury.
The order “eviscerates the promise of confidentiality” on which Maxwell relied, he attorneys stated.
“If the unsealing order goes into impact, it should without end let the cat out of the bag,” they added.
Prosecutors have till Sept. 9 to reply. Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 22.
Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not responsible to serving to Epstein recruit and finally abuse three ladies, who prosecutors didn’t publicly identify, from 1994 to 1997, and to committing perjury by denying her involvement underneath oath.
She was arrested on July 2 in New Hampshire, the place prosecutors stated she was attempting to evade seize, and is being held in a Brooklyn jail after a choose referred to as her a flight danger.
Maxwell’s trial is scheduled for subsequent July.
Epstein was discovered hanged at age 66 final August in a Manhattan jail whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking expenses.