Ghislaine Maxwell’s Bid for Prison Release Denied by Judge Who Calls Her Arguments ‘Frivolous’

Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted child sex trafficker and accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, will remain behind bars.

On Tuesday, August 25, judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected the former socialite’s bid to overturn her conviction and be freed from prison, the Associated Press reported.

After the 64-year-old filed a habeas petition — a legal request asking a court to justify a prisoner’s continued confinement — in December 2025 alleging she didn’t receive a fair trial, Engelmayer said her claims were “demonstrably meritless,” per the AP.

“Nearly all its claims are procedurally barred; the overwhelming testimonial and documentary evidence adduced at trial conclusively established her guilt; and her petition’s claims are demonstrably meritless, and generally based on speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods,” Engelmayer reportedly wrote in his ruling, calling “almost all” of her arguments “frivolous.”

Many of Maxwell’s claims of “new evidence” reportedly stem from documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. However, Engelmayer said that material is “largely irrelevant to the charges against” her.

In 2022, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that Maxwell was sentenced to 240 months (20 years) in prison “for her role in a scheme to [sexually] exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.”

“This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at the time.

As for Epstein, the late pedophile was indicted in 2019 for sex trafficking minors in the 2000s.

The disgraced financier died in his jail cell on August 10, 2019, at age 66, and his death has since been ruled a suicide.