Maxwell launches retrial bid after sex abuse claim by juror

GHISLAINE MAXWELL has launched a bid for a retrial after being convicted of trafficking teenage girls for sex with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, 60, faces spending the rest of her life in prison after being convicted by a jury in New York of grooming girls for sex with billionaire Epstein and joining in the abuse. However, a shadowwas cast over December’s guilty verdicts when one of the jurors publicly revealed he had been sexually abused as a child.

Maxwell’s legal team seized on the disclosure — and the revelation that a second juror had also suffered child sexual abuse — to demand a retrial.

In a letter to US District Judge Alison Nathan, her lawyer Bobbi C Sternheim made a formal request for the verdicts to be quashed and a retrial ordered.

“Today, counsel for Ghislaine Maxwell filed hermotion for a new trial”, she wrote, and referred directly to a juror labelled No50, who had spoken to the media. Maxwell was branded a dangerous predator during her threeweek trial, which heard from women who said they were groomed for sex as teenagers and abused at Epstein’s properties between 1994 and 2004.

The socialite daughter of former press baron Robert Maxwell did not give evidence in her defence but instead called witnesses to cast doubt on the credibility of the allegations against her. When news of the jurors’ past first broke, with claims that they had not disclosed it on the pre-trial questionnaire, Maxwell’s lawyers insisted there were “incontrovertible grounds” for a mistrial. US State Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, suggested an inquiry into the statements made by the jurors was the best way forward. Judge Nathan has set Maxwell’s sentencing hearing for June 28, but is also expected to hear submissions on the bid for a new trial. In a separate civil case, the Duke of York is battling allegations, which he denies, that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl who claims she was a victim of Maxwell and Epstein.