Though Ghislaine Maxwell is famously charged with abetting Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young girls, the socialite also faces federal perjury charges stemming from a 2015 civil suit brought by Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre, an Epstein victim who also claims to have been abused by Prince Andrew, sued Maxwell for defamation after Maxwell denied Giuffre’s allegations in the press. Andrew has denied the accusation, and Maxwell has pleaded not guilty on all charges and is being held without bail ahead of her trial. In July, the Manhattan federal judge Loretta Preska ruled to unseal a number of documents from Giuffre’s 2015 civil suit, following a lawsuit from the Miami Herald, where reporter Julie Brown published an extensive Epstein investigation in 2018.
The unsealed documents revealed some information about Maxwell’s relationship with Epstein, including a 2015 email between the two that contradicted her previous claim during her arraignment that they hadn’t been in touch in more than a decade. But her lawyers have partly succeeded in having components of the documents redacted or kept sealed. That effort continued on Tuesday, when Adam Mueller, an attorney for Maxwell, asked three federal appeals court judges to reverse Preska’s decision to unseal a 418-page deposition from the 2015 suit, as the Guardian noted.
Maxwell had argued in a court filing that unsealing the deposition “will lead to a violation of [her] due process right to a fair trial by an impartial jury” in her current case. Her trial is scheduled for July 2021, and the deposition in question forms some of the basis for the perjury charges Maxwell will face.
“The criminal indictment quotes directly from it,” Maxwell’s lawyers said. “The district court’s unsealing order eviscerates the promise of confidentiality on which Ms. Maxwell and numerous third parties reasonably relied. It sanctions the perjury trap unfairly set for Ms. Maxwell, in violation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”
“Is it your argument that unsealing would implicate your client’s Fifth Amendment right?” the judge José Cabranes asked Mueller, who said it was.
“Now, during the deposition itself, there was no invocation of those rights, was there?” Cabranes then asked.
Mueller replied, “There was no invocation of the Fifth Amendment rights because we understood the protective order applied,” adding, “Had we known differently…we would have proceeded differently.”
“Is it fair to say your client did not deny knowledge of any activity involving underage minors? Or did she? What’s your view of this?” Cabranes also asked. “Did she or did she not deny knowledge of any activity involving underage minors?”
Mueller responded, “Your honor, I’m hesitant to answer the question, because at the moment the deposition is sealed. I’m not trying to avoid answering the question, I’m hesitant to offer answers.”
On Tuesday, Mueller also asked the appeals judges to change a protective order related to some confidential materials in Maxwell’s current case, according to the Guardian, after the judge in the case denied the request. Mueller is seeking to use that information to convince Preska not to unseal the deposition.
The appeals judges’ decisions about both requests will be made at a later, unspecified date. However they rule, though, information about Maxwell’s and Epstein’s lives continues to unfold in new reports. On Monday, the New York Times reported that Leon Black, the billionaire CEO of Apollo Global Management, funded Epstein for years, and on Tuesday the New York Daily News reported on unsuccessful attempts by lawyers for Epstein victims to have him prosecuted in 2016. Wednesday’s development comes from Norway: the paper DN reported that Epstein provided the Norwegian diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen with a personal loan, and that Rød-Larsen later asked the International Peace Institute, the think tank he heads, to make payments to Epstein. (Rød-Larsen didn’t respond to questions from DN.) According to the paper’s sources, Rød-Larsen took the same route as Black, remaining in Epstein’s circle after his 2008 conviction for soliciting an underage prostitute.
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