Attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell have called on a US appeals court to bar the release of a deposition from a previous case, arguing it would ruin any chance for a fair trial on charges linked Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
The British socialite’s lawyers told the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Thursday that an order from a lower court to release the documents “eviscerates the promise of confidentiality” provided to Maxwell when she agreed to be deposed in 2016, according to Reuters.
“If the unsealing order goes into effect, it will forever let the cat out of the bag,” the attorneys said, insisting the deposition contains “intimate, sensitive, and personal information” about Maxwell that could “spread like wildfire across the Internet” and prejudice a jury against her.
While Maxwell was arrested and charged in July in connection with Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls for sex, the deposition dates back to an April 2016 civil defamation case brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre. That case was settled one year later, however since Maxwell’s arrest her lawyers have repeatedly fought the deposition’s release, previously arguing that it contained “highly confidential information,” including “nude, partially-nude, or otherwise sexualised images, videos or depictions of individuals.”
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to six charges linked grooming underage girls for sex and perjury, and remains in custody in a Brooklyn jail after being deemed an “extreme” flight risk by prosecutors. Her trial is set to begin next July.
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