Ghislaine Maxwell

Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror on her case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection.

He listened to the evidence and was fair and impartial. “His failure to disclose his prior sexual abuse during the jury selection process was highly unfortunate, but not deliberate,” Nathan continued. The judge said that was not pertinent to weighing Maxwell’s push for a new trial. “After the thoughtful and thorough hearing held by this court, it is crystal clear that the defendant received a fair trial,” prosecutors said in court papers. David told Nathan his failure to mention childhood sexual abuse was an “honest mistake” and he was deeply remorseful. He appeared to testify frankly and honestly, even when the answers he gave were the cause of personal embarrassment and regret.

The juror's statements to the media had clouded the sex-trafficking conviction of Ms. Maxwell, a longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein.

Hours before Judge Nathan’s ruling, Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers wrote to the judge, asking that she delay her decision in light of what they called new information — yet another media interview with Juror 50, which was to be released on a streaming service. He listened to the evidence and was fair and impartial. Ms. Maxwell’s conviction was the culmination of a convoluted, yearslong case that entangled celebrities and politicians and spawned conspiracy theories centered around Mr. Epstein, who died by suicide while in custody awaiting his own trial.

A US judge has upheld Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking conviction, despite a juror falsely declaring before the trial he had not been sexually abused.

At a March 8 hearing, he said he rushed through the questionnaire, made a mistake in saying he had not been a sexual abuse victim and he did not deliberately lie to get on the panel. This is what justice requires, not more." When asked in a pre-trial screening questionnaire whether he had been a victim of sexual abuse, the juror checked "no".

US District Judge Alison Nathan has ruled against Maxwell's request to overturn her conviction on charges that she enticed, groomed and sexually abused underage ...

New York: Ghislaine Maxwell has been denied a new trial on sex-trafficking charges over a juror’s failure to disclose that he was a victim of childhood sex abuse during the jury selection process.US District Judge Alison Nathan has ruled against Maxwell’s request to overturn her conviction on charges that she enticed, groomed and sexually abused underage girls with her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.Maxwell, 60, had argued that she deserved a new trial because the juror’s failure to disclose his past abuse denied her lawyers a chance to question him about potential bias and possibly exclude him from the panel that found her guilty on December 29.Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five sex trafficking offences but her lawyers have already said they will appeal. But he denied lying deliberately to try to get on the jury and said that, despite his past abuse, he wasn’t biased against Maxwell during the trial.The possibility that Scotty David intentionally withheld his past in order to get on the jury gave Maxwell a strong argument for a new trial, legal experts said.Additionally, Maxwell’s team claimed Scotty David falsely said during the jury selection process that he’d deleted his Instagram account and that he didn’t have a Twitter account. She held herself out as a friend before pushing them into sexual encounters with Epstein, and sometimes participated in sexual abuse herself, they said.Her lawyers argued that Maxwell was being scapegoated for the crimes of Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting his own sex-trafficking trial.Nathan said in her ruling that she believed the juror made a “highly unfortunate” but honest mistake while filling out the jury selection questionnaire, citing his appearance at a March 8 hearing on Maxwell’s request.“He appeared to testify frankly and honestly, even when the answers he gave were the cause of personal embarrassment and regret,” the judge said. “The Court thus credits his testimony that he was distracted as he filled out the questionnaire and skimmed way too fast, leading him to misunderstand some of the questions.”Bobbi Sternheim, a lawyer for Maxwell, didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment on the ruling.The juror’s past became an issue after he gave a series of post-verdict press interviews using his first and middle names, Scotty David. He told several media outlets that he raised his childhood abuse during deliberations to sway other jurors who doubted the testimony of some of the victims who testified against the British socialite.He answered “no”, however, when asked on his jury questionnaire whether he or anyone close to him had previously been a victim of sexual abuse.At the March 8 hearing, Scotty David testified that he answered the question incorrectly because he was “super distracted” at the time. They pointed to the example of another potential juror who they said was kept off the jury after Nathan “confronted him with his Twitter account after he falsely denied using Twitter”.Ties to Epstein led to career downfalls for former Barclays chief executive officer Jes Staley and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black and have besmirched the reputations of Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, Leslie Wexner, Bill Clinton and many other prominent men. We’re working to restore it.