Judge slaps down Ghislaine Maxwell's bid for release as he trashes 'new evidence' claims in Epstein case

See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 09:34 EDT, 25 August 2026 | Updated: 09:54 EDT, 25 August 2026 A federal judge has rejected Ghislaine Maxwell's bid to overturn her conviction and 20-year prison sentence, ruling that her claims of 'new evidence' are meritless.Judge Paul Engelmayer said Maxwell's 'new' evidence, largely drawn from files released by the Justice Department, was 'largely irrelevant' to the charges against her.'On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges,' Engelmayer wrote in the opinion issued in the Southern District of New York.Maxwell, who represented herself in the petition, had argued that the newly released Epstein files supported claims of juror misconduct, a 2007 non-prosecution deal, prosecutorial misconduct and other errors that she said undermined her conviction.Engelmayer branded her filing 'lengthy and rambling' and said that her claims were 'all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous.'Among Maxwell's arguments was that a juror who had survived sexual abuse concealed his history during jury selection and was biased against her. But Engelmayer said the Second Circuit had already rejected that claim, finding the juror had served 'fairly and impartially', while Maxwell's purported new evidence did not change that conclusion. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2022 over her role as Jeffrey Epstein's madam, supplying the financier with underage girls. She is being held at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, a minimum security facility. Ghislaine Maxwell with her co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein in a photo from the Department of Justice filesEpstein was found hanged in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in August 2019. The New York City medical examiner ruled his death a suicide, and the FBI found no evidence of a criminal act in his death.Maxwell remains the only Epstein co-conspirator ever jailed.