The
Justice Dept. Interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, While Opposing Her Appeal
Even as top
Justice Department officials brokered an interview with a longtime associate of
Jeffrey Epstein’s, they asked the Supreme Court to reject her appeal.
Abbie
VanSickle
By Abbie
VanSickle
Abbie
VanSickle covers the Supreme Court.
July 24,
2025
On Thursday,
top Justice Department officials interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime
associate of Jeffrey Epstein’s.
But just
days before, the same department asked the Supreme Court justices to reject her
appeal seeking to overturn her conviction for assisting Mr. Epstein’s alleged
crimes.
The moment
highlights the awkward position of the department that prosecuted Ms. Maxwell
as it seeks to curb criticism that federal officials have hidden information
about Mr. Epstein’s case, including his links to famous and well-connected
figures.
Prosecutors
had previously argued in court that Ms. Maxwell had been dishonest in her
accounts of her interactions with Mr. Epstein, and she has made it clear that
she wants her freedom.
Ms. Maxwell
is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for charges related to sex
trafficking. She has long denied any knowledge or participation in Mr.
Epstein’s abuse of teen girls and young women. She filed a petition to the
Supreme Court in April, asking the justices to overturn her 2021 conviction for
conspiring to sexually abuse minors.
The Epstein
saga was recently reignited by the Trump administration’s public announcement
that it would not release files related to the investigation into Mr. Epstein,
something long promised by the president and his allies.
That Justice
Department’s decision fueled an unusual backlash against the president by many
of his supporters.
Mr. Epstein
was indicted in 2019 in New York on federal charges of sex trafficking and
conspiracy and died of an apparent suicide in his jail cell while awaiting
trial.
All of the
swirling interest appears unlikely to speed the timeline for a Supreme Court
decision on whether to hear Ms. Maxwell’s appeal.
Ms. Maxwell
filed her petition on April 10. The Justice Department formally opposed her
request on July 14.
Ms.
Maxwell’s legal team is likely to file a reply brief responding to the
government’s argument. The justices typically consider petitions about a month
after receiving an opposition brief like the one filed in Ms. Maxwell’s case by
the Justice Department. However, that timeline is almost certain to be longer
here because the justices do not regularly meet to consider new cases from late
June until the end of September.
The court is
currently on its summer recess, typically a sleepy season for the institution,
when many justices travel, teach and give public appearances. While the
justices continue to handle emergency applications — and also issue periodic
summer orders, including decisions on whether to accept new cases — there has
been no indication they would expedite Ms. Maxwell’s petition.
Even if the
justices ultimately agreed to hear the appeal, it most likely would not be
argued before early October, when the court’s new term begins. A decision would
most likely come by the end of June or early July 2026.
In her
petition, Ms. Maxwell argued that she should have been shielded from criminal
charges related to her conduct with Mr. Epstein because of a plea deal Mr.
Epstein entered into with prosecutors in Florida in 2008.
Mr. Epstein
agreed to plead guilty to two state charges — soliciting prostitution and
soliciting minors to engage in prostitution — and in exchange he received an
assurance from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida
that it would not pursue federal criminal charges against him. Prosecutors also
promised to shield Mr. Epstein’s co-conspirators.
But
allegations against Mr. Epstein gained new attention in 2018, spurred by
reporting from The Miami Herald that focused on the role of R. Alexander
Acosta, the former chief federal prosecutor in Miami who signed off on Mr.
Epstein’s plea deal. Mr. Acosta became President Trump’s labor secretary during
his first administration.
A Justice
Department review of the case later determined that Mr. Acosta had “exercised
poor judgment” by allowing Mr. Epstein to dodge federal child trafficking
charges. Department officials also blamed Mr. Acosta for failing to alert Mr.
Epstein’s victims to the terms of the nonprosecution agreement and ensure that
they were aware of his guilty plea.
Mr. Epstein
was charged federally after all in 2019.
The
following year, federal prosecutors in New York indicted Ms. Maxwell on charges
related to sex trafficking.
She argued
that the case should be dropped because of the nonprosecution agreement.
A federal
judge rejected her argument, and a jury convicted her. A panel of federal
appeals judges upheld her conviction. Ms. Maxwell then filed her petition to
the justices, asking them to take up her case.
In a brief
to the court, lawyers for Ms. Maxwell argued that the federal appeals courts
were divided on whether such nonprosecution agreements apply only to
prosecutors in the region that made the deal — in this case, South Florida — or
the entire country. Lawyers for Ms. Maxwell called her case “the perfect
vehicle” for resolving the split.
In a brief
filed July 14, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, a Justice Department official,
urged the justices to reject Ms. Maxwell’s appeal.
Mr. Sauer
argued that Ms. Maxwell had “coordinated, facilitated and contributed to” Mr.
Epstein’s “sexual abuse of numerous young women and underage girls.” He said
the case would be “an unsuitable vehicle” for addressing the question of
whether such nonprosecution agreements bind the entire Justice Department,
calling Ms. Maxwell’s argument an “implausible reading” of the deal.
The Supreme
Court petition is not the only pending court challenge by Ms. Maxwell.
She also has
a pending lawsuit in the U.S. Virgin Islands seeking to have Mr. Epstein’s
estate cover her outstanding legal fees.
Ms. Maxwell
filed the lawsuit in Superior Court in St. Thomas a few months before her
arrest in 2020. The litigation has not progressed much in the court in the
Virgin Islands; according to the docket, it appears to have been reassigned to
a different judge on at least one occasion.
In the civil
complaint, Ms. Maxwell said Mr. Epstein had promised to pay her legal fees for
any claims arising from women who now say she had helped him recruit them as
teenagers to give him massages.
Matthew
Goldstein contributed reporting.
Abbie
VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer
and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
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