NEW YORK (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell asked a federal judge on Wednesday to set aside her sex trafficking conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, saying “substantial new evidence” has emerged proving that constitutional violations spoiled her trial.
Maxwell maintained in a habeas petition she has promised to file since August that information that would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld and false testimony was presented to the jury.
She said the cumulative effect of the constitutional violations resulted in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”
“Since the conclusion of her trial, substantial new evidence has emerged from related civil actions, Government disclosures, investigative reports, and documents demonstrating constitutional violations that undermined the fairness of her proceeding,” the filing in Manhattan federal court said. “In the light of the full evidentiary record, no reasonable juror would have convicted her.”
The filing came just two days before records in her case were scheduled to be released publicly as a result of President Donald Trump’s signing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The law, signed after months of public and political pressure, requires the Justice Department to provide the public with Epstein-related records by Dec. 19.
This filing is, to me, quite odd.
She has attorneys, and the cash to hire more, one of whom is quoted in this article (David Markus) but she is filing her present habeas petition pro se, which means when the petitioner is acting as their own attorney. To quote today’s NYT article:
It’s not unheard of, but it does kind of make me blink when someone who obviously has attorneys, and further access to both cash and more attorneys, suddenly goes pro se. Clearly she sees some benefit to this approach, because it’s not poverty or lack of representation that’s forcing her to represent herself.
And not only did she go pro se, she had her attorney write the letter to the supervising judge in early December that said she intended to do so.
I’m not an attorney, and I’d be very interested in hearing what anyone with actual legal experience thinks is behind this strategy, because on the face of it it’s incomprehensible to me. Beyond the actual wisdom in the old saying, “Anyone who represents themselves has a fool for an attorney,” on a practical level you just don’t do it unless you are absolutely forced to, especially in criminal proceedings, where slight procedural missteps can lose an entire case.
Pro se habeas petitions are what prisoners with no money and lawyers write. What’s this fool’s reason?
I don’t think the point of the lawsuit is to win via legal means. It’s just to give Trump a “justification” to pardon her.
A lawyer can’t advise you to, or knowingly allow you to, lie. She’s likely planning to commit perjury and is either insulating her lawyers or preventing them from ratting her out as they are mandated to. It’s also possible she’s planning to throw her lawyers under the bus.
At least, not lawfully.
A pro se litigant cannot get sanctions.
This means they can also file some batshit crazy stuff and just get away with it, all a judge can do is say no.
She will file something crazy and then hope to hit one of Trump’s bribed/loyal cult judges.
Thank you! I had an idea it was going to be something like that, but did not have enough knowledge of the law to narrow it further.
As far as I know David Markus is still representing her in related criminal matters; he specifically referred to her as his client in his letter to the judge (NYT article, para 10) when referencing the DoJ request to unseal grand jury materials, making note of her pro se position solely in regard to filing the habeas petition.
She has other attorneys as well: her personal attorney Leah Saffian; Melissa Madrigal, who represented her at the DoJ interview conducted by Todd Blanche; and of course she has the cash to hire anyone else she wants.
So to me it was always a strategy decision and not one made of necessity. Really appreciate you taking the time to explain.
No rational person wants to represent her?
Either the evidence is so laughable no one wants to touch it or no one wants to be known as the person who colluded with trump to release his pedo buddy
She already has attorneys, multiple ones, she’s filed this herself.
I understand that, I’m saying that perhaps it’s such a bad idea that no lawyer wants to be attached so she’s had to do it on her own
Lawyers have no shame.