Victims object to ‘public legitimization’ of Ghislaine Maxwell as judge weighs fate of Epstein grand jury transcripts
This undated trial evidence image obtained December 8
By Kara Scannell, CNN
(CNN) — Numerous victims of Jeffrey Epstein took aim at the “public legitimization” of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell as they urged a federal judge considering unsealing grand jury transcripts to take their privacy into account when making his decision.
Lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who represent numerous victims, including a woman who testified at Maxwell’s criminal trial, also questioned the motives of the Justice Department as the Trump administration tries to tamp down criticism from some of his most ardent supporters after deciding not to release a trove of investigative files.
In a letter filed Tuesday to the judge overseeing the Maxwell case, the lawyers said Maxwell’s meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last month and her transfer to a lower security prison was “jarring” for victims.
“For survivors who bravely testified, the perception that Ms. Maxwell is being legitimized in public discourse has already resulted in re-traumatization,” they wrote.
The letter offered the most critical reaction to date from victims of Epstein and Maxwell, some of whom have long-standing distrust of the federal government’s history investigating Epstein.
After evading a federal prosecution in 2007 through a secret nonprosecution agreement, Epstein was indicted in 2019 in New York with sex trafficking, but weeks later died by suicide before trial. Maxwell is the only person charged and convicted in the scheme. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence and has appealed her conviction.
“The survivors support transparency when it can be achieved without sacrificing their safety, privacy, or dignity,” the lawyers wrote in a letter to the judge weighing unsealing transcripts from the investigation into Maxwell.
“But transparency cannot come at the expense of the very people whom the justice system is sworn to protect — particularly amid contemporaneous events that magnify risk and trauma: the public platforming of Ms. Maxwell as a purportedly credible commentator despite her sex-trafficking conviction and perjury charges, her transfer to lower-security custody, a government request to unseal filed without conferral, and the looming specter of clemency,” they added.
Another law firm representing Annie Farmer, who testified that Maxwell recruited and sexually assaulted her alongside Epstein, pushed for the unsealing of transcripts but noted in a footnote her concern that Maxwell will benefit from the recent confluence of events.
“(E)pstein escaped justice through his apparent suicide, and Maxwell is now, to the victims’ horror, herself attempting to escape justice by negotiating for herself a potential pardon or commutation of her sentence,” Farmer’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley wrote. “The victims of her crimes unequivocally object to any potential leniency that the Government may be considering offering Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker.”
The concerns were laid out in letters that are among several submitted to the two judges considering unsealing grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case.
Edwards and Cassell said victims were not consulted by the government before Maxwell’s transfer to a lower security prison, which they view as “extraordinarily insensitive and suggestive of ulterior purposes,” the lawyers wrote.
Nor were they consulted before the motions to unseal were filed, the lawyers said, adding, “This omission reinforces the perception that the victims are, at best, an afterthought to the current administration.”
“For some, the Maxwell conviction is the only meaningful measure of criminal accountability; its erosion would be devastating,” the lawyers wrote.
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
Maxwell opposes releasing Epstein grand jury documents
For her part, Maxwell on Tuesday argued her legal interests outweigh the public’s interest in Epstein and urged the judge to deny the Trump administration’s motion to unseal grand jury transcripts.
“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not. Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain,” David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s attorney, wrote to the judge.
Markus said since they have not seen the grand jury transcripts, he has “no choice” but to oppose their release.
Maxwell is appealing her conviction on sex trafficking and other charges. She has asked the Supreme Court to take up her case and any potential reversal could result in a new trial.
“Public curiosity is insufficient when Maxwell’s legal and reputational interests are at stake. These factors weigh heavily in favor of preserving the secrecy of the grand jury materials,” Markus said. “The reputational harm from releasing incomplete, potentially misleading grand jury testimony, untested by cross-examination, would be severe and irrevocable,” he added.
Last month, Maxwell met with Blanche for interviews spanning more than nine hours over two days. She was subsequently moved from a low-security prison in Florida to a low-security prison camp in Texas.
The Trump administration is debating releasing transcripts of Blanche’s interview with Maxwell.
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