Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review her 2021 sex trafficking conviction.
According to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital, Maxwell’s legal team filed a petition on Monday requesting the high court take up her appeal.
In the filing, her attorneys argue that the federal government is obligated to uphold a 2007 non-prosecution agreement made with Epstein, an agreement they claim should have also protected Maxwell from prosecution, Fox News reported.
“Even more remarkably, the government advances an interpretation of its non-prosecution agreement that flips its plain meaning on its head,” said the legal brief. “Promising ‘not to prosecute’ somehow meant preserving the right to prosecute. That is not contract interpretation; it is alchemy.”
Federal prosecutors have previously argued that Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement applied only within Florida, rendering it irrelevant to Maxwell’s case, which was prosecuted in New York.
However, in their brief, Maxwell’s defense team contended that the agreement included no geographic limitations and should therefore extend to her as well, Fox noted.
“It is not geographically limited to the Southern District of Florida, it is not conditioned on the co-conspirators being known by the government at the time, it does not depend on what any particular government attorney may have had in his or her head about who might be a co-conspirator, and it contains no other caveat or exception. This should be the end of the discussion,” the brief added.
Federal prosecutors have maintained that Maxwell cannot invoke the terms of the agreement because she was not explicitly named as a party to it, a position her lawyers argue is legally flawed.
“The government also suggests that Petitioner is not entitled to enforce the NPA because she was not a party to it and was not named in it,” the brief said. “But as the court below recognized and as hornbook contract law dictates, Maxwell has standing to enforce the agreement as a third-party beneficiary.”
The filing marks the initial step in Maxwell’s effort to persuade the Supreme Court to hear her case as part of her ongoing attempt to overturn her conviction, Fox added.
“No one is above the law — not even the Southern District of New York,” David Markus, Maxwell’s attorney, said in a statement. “Our government made a deal, and it must honor it. The United States cannot promise immunity with one hand in Florida and prosecute with the other in New York.
“President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal — and surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it. We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the President himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted,” Markus noted further.
Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in federal prison after she was found guilty of working alongside Epstein to sexually abuse and exploit young girls, Fox reported.
President Trump revealed on Friday that he has not thought about giving a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell, although he didn’t rule it out.
“It’s something I haven’t thought about. I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about,” Trump said in response to a question from a CNN reporter.
Asked again later if clemency is on the table, Trump told reporters at the White House: “I can’t talk about that now. … it’s very sensitive,” before going on to praise Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who held two meetings with Maxwell last week, the details of which have not been released.