A judge on Friday refused to toss out the sex-trafficking conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, despite the finding that a juror failed to disclose prior to the trial that he had been a victim of sexual abuse.
The British socialite was convicted in December for aiding deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein traffic and sexually abuse a number of underage girls.
Judge Alison J. Nathan declined to order a new trial after having questioned the juror under oath about why he did not disclose on a questionnaire provided during the jury selection process his past as a survivor of abuse.
The juror maintained that he “skimmed way too fast” through the questionnaire and did not mean to provide the wrong answer about sex abuse.
“I didn’t lie to get on this jury,” he asserted.
Nathan argued the juror’s failure to disclose his past sex abuse was highly unfortunate, but not deliberate. She also determined that the juror “harbored no bias toward the defendant and could serve as a fair and impartial juror.”
Maxwell’s lawyers said that had they known of the man’s past, they might have objected to his presence on the jury out of concern he would not be fair to a person accused of a similar crime.
After a month-long trial, Maxwell, 60, was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges. The prosecution presented testimony from four women who said the defendant helped set them up for abuse by Epstein.
Epstein apparently committed suicide while awaiting trial at a federal jail in New York. Maxwell continues to claim she’s innocent.
After the trial ended, the juror in question, identified in court documents as Juror No. 50, gave interviews to various media outlets in which he described deliberations and revealed he’d been abused as a child. He said he persuaded some of his fellow jurors that a victim’s imperfect memory of abuse doesn’t mean it never happened.
Potential jurors had been made to fill out a 50-page questionnaire that featured a question that asked, “Have you or a friend or family member ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?”
The juror checked “No.”
In one of the interviews he gave, the juror claimed he didn’t remember being asked that question, which on the form was Number 48.
Maxwell’s defense lawyers immediately called on the judge to order a new trial.
AP reports:
After Nathan questioned the juror in early March, lawyers on both sides submitted written arguments. Prosecutors said the juror made an “honest mistake” and that it was “crystal clear” that Maxwell received a fair trial.
Maxwell’s lawyers disagreed.
“Excusing Juror 50’s false answers because he believes his concealed history of sexual abuse did not affect his ability to serve as a fair and impartial juror does not satisfy the appearance of justice,” they argued. “Only a new trial would.”
But Nathan rejected that reasoning, writing that the juror’s claims that he remained impartial toward Maxwell rang true.
Of her conversations with Juror No. 50, Judge Nathan said: “Frankly and honestly, even when the answers he gave were the cause of personal embarrassment and regret, his tone, demeanor and responsiveness gave no indication of false testimony.”
One of the many high-profile figures caught up in the Epstein scandal is the U.K.’s Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II.
Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was sex-trafficked by Epstein as a minor, has accused Prince Andrew of child sexual abuse. After intense public scrutiny related to the allegations and his relationship to Epstein, Andrew resigned from his public roles, and his honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were returned to the queen in January of this year.
He was the defendant in a civil lawsuit over sexual assault filed by Giuffre in New York State, which was settled out of court in February 2022.
Andrew is now in the spotlight again after being named in a U.K. fraud dispute involving an elderly Turkish woman and a businessman. A London-based former banker has been accused of embezzling around £40 million of the woman’s assets outside of Turkey; the funds were allegedly used for “unconnected purposes,” including a “significant sum” paid to Prince Andrew.
With Maxwell convicted, is the Epstein story over? Or are there more revelations to come?
