Wednesday, October 7, 2026

U.S. court rejects Ghislaine ​Maxwell’s bid to quash 20-year jail sentence for helping Epstein to molest minors

Ms Maxwell, currently 64, will be qualified for release in 2037 when she would be 75 years.

• August 26, 2026
Ghislaine Maxwell
Ghislaine Maxwell [Credit: Rick Bajornas / AP file]

A New York Court has quashed Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and 20-year prison sentence for helping sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to molest minors.

District judge Paul Engelmayer dismissed Ms Maxwell’s arguments as “frivolous” and “meritless” describing them as inconsequential and too weak to alter her conviction and two-decade sentencing.

Mr Engelmayer said Ms Maxwell was rehashing the same old arguments that led to her conviction back in December 2021.

“On the contrary, to the extent it ​is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings ⁠Maxwell challenges,” Mr Engelmayer wrote in a 67-page decision released on Tuesday.

He added that her so-called new arguments, if presented at her trial years ago, would have still had no impact on her conviction.

“There is no fact that Maxwell fairly puts in dispute that has any potential to disturb the outcome of her trial,” the judge said.

Ms Maxwell, currently 64, will be qualified for release in 2037 when she would be 75 years.

Her efforts to obtain a pardon from President Donald Trump had proved unsuccessful si far after the U.S. President said, “I don’t know anything about it, so I will speak to the [Department of Justice].”

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