Ghislaine Maxwell on Friday lost her bid to overturn her U.S. sex trafficking conviction, even after a juror acknowledged having falsely stated before the trial that he had not been sexually abused.
U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan said the juror, a man known in court papers as Juror 50, testified truthfully at a hearing last month, after Maxwell's lawyers said his false answers on a pretrial questionnaire justified granting a new trial.
Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell faces up to 65 years in prison after being found guilty on five of the six counts she faced. Her lawyers have vowed to appeal the verdict.Juror 50 had checked "no" when asked in a pretrial screening questionnaire whether he had been a victim of sexual abuse.
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 did not deliberately lie to get on the panel.