Ghislaine Maxwell ‘launching $10m appeal against 20-year sex trafficking sentence’
Ghislaine Maxwell is reportedly planning to launch a $10 million appeal against her conviction for her role in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal after reaching a last-ditch divorce settlement with her former husband to give her access to trust fund cash.
Ghislaine Maxwell is reportedly launching a $10 million appeal against her conviction for her role in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
The disgraced 61-year-old socialite – languishing at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida, after being sentenced for 20 years for sex trafficking and grooming underage girls for her late paedophile lover Epstein – is said to have accessed the cash after she reached a last-ditch divorce settlement with her former husband, according to MailOnline.
Maxwell’s appeal against her sentence was in “serious jeopardy”, the outlet reported on Sunday (19.02.23), as her tech CEO ex Scott Borgerson, 46, had apparently been refusing to release money from her $20 million trust.
A source told MailOnline a settlement had now been reached between the estranged pair that will let her pay an outstanding legal fee of $878,302 and fund lawyers working on her appeal – who are thought to include attorney Arthur L Aidala, 56, who represented fallen movie mogul Weinstein, 70, in his New York appeal.
An insider said: “Ghislaine has reached a divorce settlement with her husband Scott Borgerson and is ready to fight back.
“Her lawyers are confident that she has a strong case for appeal.”
Maxwell is thought to have married Scott in 2016 after they met in Iceland in 2013 and he took control of the remains of her multi-million dollar fortune after she transferred $20 million into a trust fund before she was arrested on charges including sex trafficking.
He is said to have ended their relationship in July 2020 in a phone call to the New York prison where Maxwell was being held as she awaited trial over her role in the Epstein scandal.
When she was found guilty on five of six charges relating to trafficking and sexual abuse, Scott is said to have refused to release money Maxwell needed to pay her lawyers and launch an appeal against her 2021 conviction.
It was reported in January she had engaged Weinstein’s former lawyer Mr Aidala to launch her appeal, who told Page Six the trial judge “made mistakes” in Maxwell’s case.
The attorney must file an appeal on her behalf by 28 February and he has said Maxwell was “mistreated” during her incarceration, including being “malnourished”.
Mr Aidala added the appeals process would not be about Maxwell’s guilt or innocence, but “whether the judge who decided the case made the correct legal ruling”.
If the lawyer files Maxwell’s appeal on time, a date will then be decided for the hearing, with each side being given 30 minutes to state their case, with the court likely to sit in July or September.
The judge in Maxwell’s case, United States Circuit Judge Alison J Nathan, had shot down Maxwell’s request for a new trial, and she was convicted on five of six counts, including sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.
