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Pleading to keep testimony secret, Ghislaine Maxwell says, ‘don’t let cat out of the bag’
Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell, the jailed alleged madam to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, have asked an appellate court to keep sealed a controversial deposition of hers but failed in a much-anticipated filing to present new information they had learned in a separate criminal case that they said would bolster their argument for keeping the material under wraps.
The new filing from Maxwell hit the court docket Thursday night, hours before a deadline imposed by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. It is hearing her appeal of an order by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska to unseal most documents in a civil lawsuit settled in 2017 between Maxwell and Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
Maxwell contends the 413-page deposition, taken in 2016, was given with the expectation that it would not be used against her in other proceedings. In the new appeal filing, her lawyers warned that allowing the deposition into the public realm, especially as she faces criminal prosecution, would have a chilling effect on future witnesses.
“If the unsealing order goes into effect, it will forever let the cat out of the bag,” they warned in a 74-page filing, adding that doing so would also hamper Maxwell’s ability to get a fair trial in the criminal case
Maxwell had stayed largely out of public view, her whereabouts a global mystery, in the wake of Epstein’s arrest in July 2019 and death in a Manhattan jail cell a month later. That was until her arrest this past July 2, holed up in a posh 156-acre New Hampshire estate.
The British socialite was charged with four counts of sexual trafficking of a child in connection with three girls she allegedly recruited and groomed to be abused by Epstein between 1994 and 1997, one of whom she allegedly also abused. Maxwell was also charged with two counts of perjury tied to statements she made during the deposition in the 2015 defamation suit brought by Giuffre.
Maxwell’s lawyers argue that federal prosecutors obtained the deposition in violation of a protective order in the civil suit protecting against the release of confirmation materials. Her lawyers said in the filing they will challenge the government’s use of the deposition in the criminal case. Unsealing it, they argue, hinders their defense.
The appeal, which will be argued on Sept. 22, stems from a litigation brought by the Miami Herald and others that challenged the sealing of materials in the settled lawsuit, arguing that they should have been public in the first place.
Giuffre alleges that Maxwell lured her away as a teenager from a job at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to work for Epstein. There, Giuffre alleges, she and Epstein abused her and over a four-year period trafficked her to powerful men, including Britain’s Prince Andrew and celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Both men deny it, and Dershowitz and Giuffre have dueling defamation suits that now are seeking to use documents from the settled Maxwell case.
After appealing Preska’s late July ruling to unseal a large batch of documents, Maxwell’s lawyers filed another motion before Preska asking for even more time before unsealing. They said it was warranted because of “critical new information” they had learned from materials turned over to them by federal prosecutors in the criminal case.
But they didn’t specify in Thursday’s filing just what that information — shielded by a different protective order in the criminal case — is. A final argument for the release of that information must be filed by noon next Monday, they said..
Maxwell’s lawyers have also argued in the criminal case this week that federal prosecutors should reveal the names of the three alleged victims in the case so that Maxwell can better prepare her defense.
One of the three victims, Annie Farmer, has publicly identified herself.
Lawyers for Maxwell, the daughter of a famed British publishing mogul, have also argued for her conditions to be modified at the Brooklyn detention center where she awaits trial without bail.
Because Epstein attempted suicide weeks before he was found hanging, embarrassed federal authorities are making sure it doesn’t happen again with Maxwell. Lawyers said she must wear special clothing, is awakened every few hours at night for jail-cell checks, is denied access to emails and gets less time for personal calls than other prisoners. They’ve asked for treatment like that given to ordinary prisoners.
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