Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers ask judge to dismiss charges against her

Lawyers for British socialite and accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell on Monday night asked a judge to dismiss charges that she recruited victims for the late Jeffrey Epstein.

In a series of motions to dismiss, Maxwell’s attorneys allege prosecutors improperly obtained the indictment against her and accuse the grand jury of not properly representing the Southern District of New York, where she was indicted.

“The government thus violated Ms. Maxwell’s Sixth Amendment right to be indicted by a grand jury drawn from a fair-cross section of the community,” the motion states.

The grand jury that indicted Maxwell was drawn from White Plains, a Westchester County suburb, while the alleged crimes for which Maxwell was indicted took place in Manhattan, which the motion alleges makes the indictment invalid.

“At no point … has the government alleged that Ms. Maxwell engaged in any unlawful conduct in the White Plains Division, or that any overt act in furtherance of the alleged conspiracies occurred in the White Plains Division,” it states.

Maxwell’s lawyers’ motions also argue that a controversial non-prosecution agreement Epstein reached with the federal government in 2020 applies to her as well, according to The Associated Press. Epstein’s attorneys had planned to argue he was protected from federal sex trafficking charges after his July 2019 arrest before his death in federal custody a month later.

In a separate motion, Maxwell’s lawyers ask the government to dismiss the charges for lack of specificity, claiming the first four counts of the indictment are “based largely on vaguely stated, non-criminal acts of so-called ‘grooming’” and do not provide her with enough information to mount an effective defense.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to the indictment, which alleges she recruited three teenage girls in the 1990s for Epstein to sexually abuse and had herself participated in the abuse. Her trial is set for July.