Ghislaine Maxwell Denied New Trial Over Juror’s Past Abuse
Ghislaine Maxwell Denied New Trial Over Juror’s Past Sex Abuse
(Bloomberg) -- Ghislaine Maxwell was denied a new trial on sex-trafficking charges over a juror’s failure to disclose during jury selection that he was a victim of childhood sex abuse.
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan on Friday ruled against Maxwell’s request to overturn her Dec. 29 conviction on charges that she enticed, groomed and sexually abused underage girls with her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.
Nathan’s ruling ends -- for now -- a drama that called into a question a verdict widely hailed as bringing long-delayed justice to Epstein’s victims. The juror at issue gave a series of post-verdict press interviews in which 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.
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.
‘Highly Unfortunate’ Mistake
Nathan said in her ruling that she believed the juror, who was identified in the press by his first and middle names, Scotty David, 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 a voicemail or email seeking comment on the ruling.
Scotty David answered “no” 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, he testified that he answered the question incorrectly because he was “super distracted” at the time. 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. Former federal prosecutor Andrew Lelling suggested past sexual abuse was particularly problematic for a juror because it “generates intense feelings both in the person victimized and in others in the group.”
But Nathan strongly disagreed with the idea that past victims could not be fair jurors. She noted that she had previously allowed a juror to serve in a murder trial despite the juror’s disclosing that a family member had been murdered. Likewise, Nathan said Scotty David “even in light of his past experience of sexual abuse, established that he too could serve fairly and impartially.”
Just hours before Nathan’s decision Sternheim had asked Nathan to hold off making a ruling so that the defense could review a “bombshell” interview Scotty David gave for a documentary about the case to air on Paramount Plus TV.
Maxwell’s team had also 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. 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.”
Four Women
Maxwell was convicted after three weeks of testimony, with four women taking the stand to describe how she lured them into Epstein’s orbit as teenagers. 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.
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 and many other prominent men. All have denied knowing about or participating in inappropriate conduct with Epstein.
Andrew in February reached a confidential settlement in a lawsuit brought against him by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who claimed the British royal was one of several prominent men to whom Epstein “lent” her for sexual abuse.
The case is U.S. v. Maxwell, 20-cr-00330, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)
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