Ghislaine Maxwell asks court to vacate her 20-year prison sentence

Ghislaine Maxwell asks court to vacate her 20-year prison sentence

Madeline Halpert

Wed, December 17, 2025 at 10:50 PM UTC

2 min read

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein — [Getty Images]

Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has asked a federal court to vacate or amend her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

Maxwell claims that "substantial new evidence" has emerged from civil cases, investigative reports and other documents demonstrating that she did not receive a fair trial, according to a court filing in New York.

The appeal follows several failed attempts from Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021, to try to reduce her prison sentence.

It comes as the justice department faces a 19 December deadline to release files related to federal investigations into Epstein.

Maxwell filed the petition pro se - without an attorney - on Wednesday.

The BBC has contacted the Southern District of New York, where Maxwell made the request, for comment.

Maxwell was convicted for her role in luring underage girls for her former boyfriend, the disgraced financier Epstein, to abuse. Epstein died in prison in 2019.

In the new court filing, Maxwell argues that several new pieces of evidence mean that "no reasonable juror would have convicted her". In one example she cites, a juror supposedly hid a history of sexual abuse during the jury selection process that could have hurt their ability to be unbiased during her trial.

Federal judges in New York and Florida recently cleared the way for grand jury material related to investigations into Maxwell and Epstein to be publicly released so that the justice department can meet the deadline that Congress has set in the Epstein Transparency Act, passed last month.

Maxwell was moved from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas in August, after she was interviewed by Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche about her ties to Epstein.

She has appealed her case numerous times and lost. In October, the US Supreme Court said it would not hear an appeal from Maxwell.

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