Posted on 07/05/2021 1:49:46 AM PDT by RandFan
Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell, a former confidant of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, are asking to have some of her charges in a sex trafficking case dropped, citing the recent release of former actor Bill Cosby from prison.
Maxwell is facing an eight-count indictment in connection with her role in a sex trafficking scheme with Epstein, who was a convicted sex offender.
Epstein was charged in July 2019 with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking but was denied bail ahead of his trial. He died in jail, and his death was ruled a suicide by a New York City medical examiner.
In a court filing on Friday, Maxwell’s lawyers claimed that she was covered by a nondisclosure agreement between Epstein and Miami federal prosecutors in 2007, NBC News reported.
The filing said that since prosecutors had agreed not to issue charges to co-conspirators, she would be included in that agreement even though she’s not specifically named.
"The government is trying to renege on its agreement and prosecute Ms. Maxwell over 25 years later for the exact same offenses for which she was granted immunity in the NPA," the filing said, according to NBC News.
Cosby's 2018 conviction was overturned on Wednesday after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that his due process rights were violated.
Then-District Attorney Bruce Castor promised Cosby he would not press charges given that he felt he did not have enough evidence to convict Cosby of sexual assault against Andrea Constand, who was a Temple University employee at the time. Cosby subsequently testified in a civil case brought by Castor instead.
However, the district attorney who succeeded Castor did not honor the previous arrangement and used evidence from the testimony to file charges against Cosby.
According to NBC News, federal prosecutors in Manhattan have said in the past that the nondisclosure agreement does not apply to Maxwell.
Maxwell allegedly helped Epstein recruit underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004.
Maxwell was originally charged with four counts related to conspiracy to entice minors to travel and engage in illegal sex acts and two counts of perjury for allegedly lying to prosecutors.
In March, she was subsequently hit with two more charges.
Just release the names in Epstein’s black book and things will turn out just fine.
Bill Gates and Bill Clinton really don’t want that to happen
I said on reddit that this exact thing would happen.
It is their back door get out of jail free card- all someone has to do is make a promise and there we go.
She will be walking free. You watch.
Whoever has his many, many blackmail videos runs the world. Someone got to the safe on his island. Who???
This is actually a fascinating question; are non-prosecution agreements legally binding on all parties irrespective if one or more of the parties didn’t authorize (or potentially weren’t even aware of) the agreement? IOW, can either Ghislaine Maxwell or the state be contractually bound when Maxwell wasn’t a party to the original agreement?
I’m sure there’s an answer to this question because as often as the government squeezes guilty pleas from defendants on the promise that they won’t bring charges against family members, it’s unlikely this hasn’t already been litigated (to some degree) before.
But, whatever way this works out, one thing that cuts deeply against Maxwell is just about everything the feds have indicted her for, there’s a corollary charge in state court. So, even if she beats some of these federal charges because of the fed’s agreement with Epstein, federal agreements don’t mean bupkis in state court.
She’s screwed, either way.
More bottom feeding lawyers citing apples and zebras.
Sounds to me that Maxwell and Epstein never committed a crime after 2004 ...
An awful lot of spinning going on.
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