The Supreme Court on Oct. 6 declined to decide whether Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was wrongly prosecuted for sex trafficking, avoiding a politically sensitive issue that has bedeviled President Donald Trump.
The justices rejected an appeal from Maxwell, who argued that a deal Epstein struck with federal prosecutors in Florida should have prevented her from being charged in New York.
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for trafficking a minor to engage in sex acts with Epstein, has also sought help from Trump.
Maxwell’s attorneys want Trump to pardon or commute her sentence in exchange for her cooperation in the Epstein investigation and broader sex trafficking issues.
She spent two days talking to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July as the administration scrambled to respond to calls for more transparency over what Epstein did and who else may have been involved. Around that time, federal officials moved Maxwell from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas.