A federal judge denied Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to toss her conviction on Tuesday after the defendant unsuccessfully argued that her punishment for being an accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein was a “complete miscarriage of justice.”
Maxwell, representing herself in a New York court, attempted to overturn her December 2021 conviction and sentence by seeking a writ of habeas corpus that would have declared her court-ordered punishment unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected her argument entirely and warned her against pursuing any further appeals because they would not be taken in good faith.
“Maxwell’s claims are all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous,” Engelmayer wrote in the scathing ruling. “The vast majority are procedurally barred — either because Maxwell made and lost the same arguments on direct appeal, or because she could have made such arguments on appeal but elected not to do so.”
“And the purported ‘new’ evidence to which Maxwell points, principally materials released under the [Epstein Files Transparency Act], is largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error,” he continued. “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.”
The judge’s decision is in response to Maxwell’s December 2025 petition alleging that key information was withheld from the federal jury during her 2021 trial. If such information had been provided, Maxwell argued she would have been exonerated of her crimes. She helped Epstein groom and sexually abuse teenage girls and women for years.
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Tuesday’s ruling marks the latest legal blow to the Epstein co-conspirator, who will remain incarcerated until her sentence is over.
Maxwell is serving the rest of her 20-year prison sentence at a minimum-security federal prison in Texas. The prison camp has been scrutinized by Democrats ever since Maxwell was transferred there from a federal prison in Florida last year. The transfer came after Maxwell was granted limited immunity for answering questions in a private, two-day interview with now-Attorney General Todd Blanche.