A federal judge has rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s request to vacate her 2021 conviction and 20-year prison sentence stemming from her role in notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
Maxwell, who is serving her sentence at a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas, filed the petition pro se on December 17, 2025. She later supplemented it on April 20, 2026, and submitted an additional unauthorized supplement on July 27. The government then opposed the petition on May 19, at which point Maxwell responded on June 9.
In the filing, Maxwell sought a writ of habeas corpus declaring her conviction and sentence unlawful. She argued that materials released by the Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), enacted in November 2025, demonstrated violations of her due process rights and other constitutional protections.
Maxwell’s principal claims fell into several categories. Some had been raised and rejected on her direct appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which affirmed her conviction and sentence in 2024. These included allegations of juror misconduct involving Juror 50, who after the verdict disclosed a history of sexual abuse that he had not reported during jury selection, arguments that a 2007 non-prosecution agreement involving Epstein barred her prosecution in the Southern District of New York, and claims that the indictment was constructively amended by evidence presented at trial.
Maxwell also raised a claim regarding alleged withholding of exculpatory evidence in the form of 2006 state grand jury testimony about a massage table introduced at trial.
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A judge asked to rule on Ghislaine Maxwell’s petition for relief called her filing “lengthy and rambling” while denying the request on Tuesday. In a 67-page decision, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that she failed to make a substantial showing that her constitutional… pic.twitter.com/1h3HKXq06X
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 25, 2026
On Tuesday, August 25, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York denied Maxwell’s petition. In his ruling, Engelmayer determined that Maxwell’s claims were all meritless and that all or almost all were frivolous.
He stated that the vast majority were procedurally barred, either because they had already been decided against her on direct appeal under the mandate rule or because they had not been raised on appeal and Maxwell failed to demonstrate the required cause and prejudice to overcome the default. The judge further found that the purported new evidence from the EFTA releases — which were comprised of millions of pages of documents from investigations related to Epstein — was largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell.
To the extent any materials were relevant, the court concluded they incriminated her or reinforced the correctness of prior legal rulings rather than supporting her claims of error.
The court concluded that Maxwell had not made a substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right. Accordingly, appellate review was not warranted. Judge Engelmayer certified that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied in forma pauperis status for purposes of an appeal.
Maxwell was previously convicted by a federal grand jury in 2021 on five of six counts: conspiracy to entice a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts; conspiracy to transport a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors; and sex trafficking of a minor. She was later sentenced to 240 months imprisonment a year later.
The conviction stemmed from conduct between 1994 and 2004, during which Maxwell assisted Epstein in a scheme to recruit, groom, and facilitate the sexual abuse of underage girls, some as young as 14. Evidence at trial showed she helped identify potential victims, befriended them, normalized inappropriate interactions, and arranged for them to travel to Epstein’s residences in various locations
