Ghislaine Maxwell's final bid for freedom crushed as court makes dramatic decision

Ghislaine Maxwell’s final bid for freedom has been crushed after the US Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal against her criminal conviction.

The decision ends the disgraced British socialite’s attempt to overturn her 20-year prison sentence for grooming and trafficking girls for billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell's only hope of early release now rests on a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, with whom she once socialised in New York and Palm Beach.

The court rejected her petition during their so-called “long conference” - a private meeting held before the new court term - where they decide which cases to add to their workload. Federal prosecutors had fiercely opposed Maxwell’s appeal, which argued her 2021 conviction violated an earlier deal Epstein struck with prosecutors in Florida.

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Following the ruling, her attorney, David Oscar Markus, said: "We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case. But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done."

In Maxwell's petition, filed in April, she claimed that her prosecution was barred by the controversial non-prosecution agreement that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to lesser state charges in 2008. She said that after negotiations with federal prosecutors, “Mr Epstein pleaded guilty to state criminal charges in Florida in June 2008. As part of the agreement, federal prosecutors agreed not to bring more criminal charges against him related to the sex-trafficking investigation.”

“Critically,” she added, “they also agreed not to charge his co-conspirators.” Her lawyers argued that by bringing charges in New York in 2020, the government had breached that deal. Prosecutors responded, saying that the Florida agreement was limited to that district and did not shield Maxwell from federal prosecution elsewhere. She insisted the agreement carried “no geographic limitation.”

In her filing, Prince Andrew’s pal wrote that a person accused of a crime “should be able to rely on a promise that the United States will not prosecute again, without being subject to a gotcha in another part of the country where prosecutors choose to interpret that plain-language promise in some other way.”

She argued that the “default rule” should be that “a promise made on behalf of the United States binds the entire United States unless it says so affirmatively.” Her argument revisited the controversial 2008 deal that spared Epstein federal charges. He was arrested again in 2019 on sex trafficking counts in New York, with prosecutors there arguing they were not bound by the Miami agreement.

A month later, he was found dead in his jail cell in what officials called a suicide. The following summer, Maxwell was charged with helping to recruit and abuse underage girls for the financier’s network of sexual exploitation.

At her 2021 trial, prosecutors described her as a “predator” who lured victims into Epstein’s orbit and participated in the abuse herself. A New York jury found her guilty on multiple counts, and in June 2022, a federal judge sentenced her to 20 years, saying she had played “a central role” in the scheme.

Lawyers for the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to reject Maxwell’s appeal, claiming her legal arguments were groundless. Solicitor General D. John Sauer dismissed her claim that the nonprosecution deal applied nationwide as “incorrect” and said she had failed to “show that it would succeed in any court of appeals.”

Just days after Sauer filed his response, senior Justice Department officials contacted Maxwell’s legal team seeking an interview as part of the administration’s internal review of the case. The contact followed US Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement that she would not release further internal documents related to the Epstein-Maxwell investigation - a move that sparked public outrage.

Maxwell agreed to the Justice Department interview, and within a week, she was quietly transferred from a federal prison in Florida to the low-security women’s camp at Bryan, Texas - a facility dubbed “Club Fed” for its relaxed regime.

Now aged 63, the disgraced daughter of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell is expected to serve the remainder of her sentence there unless Trump intervenes. The case continues to haunt the White House, Washington and fuel questions about the powerful figures once linked to Epstein’s inner circle.

Although the crimes date back decades, the scandal - and Maxwell’s relationship with both Epstein and Trump - remains a political flashpoint, particularly after the Trump administration refused to release the full FBI files from the investigation.

With the Supreme Court’s decision, Maxwell’s legal avenues are now exhausted, leaving clemency as her only hope.