Maxwell loses bid to keep sworn testimony under wraps

Ghislaine Maxwell loses bid to keep sworn testimony under wraps

Credit: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Ghislaine Maxwell has lost her legal battle to keep sworn depositions giving intimate details about her personal life under wraps.

A federal appeals court upheld a decision from a lower court that the testimony given by the 58-year-old socialite and associate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein should be made public.

Maxwell is currently being held at a Brooklyn prison awaiting trial on charges that she helped Epstein recruit underage girls as young as 14 to engage in sexual acts in the mid-1990s.

She has pleaded not guilty.

The documents relate to a deposition she gave in 2016 as part of a civil defamation case brought by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Ms Giuffre alleges Epstein forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew and others when she was only 17. The Duke of York has denied the allegations.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend Batman Forever

Credit: Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan

Appealing to the court to keep the documents sealed Maxwell, the daughter of media magnate and former Labour MP, Robert Maxwell, said that publishing the testimony would jeopardise her own defence against the criminal charges she is facing.

Maxwell’s lawyers had argued that the depositions, which are the only on-the-record evidence she has given of her association with Epstein, were given on the understanding that they would be regarded as confidential.

Releasing the documents, they argued would lead to “substantial negative media publicity and speculation in an internet world."

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York,  allege that Maxwell committed perjury when she gave the two depositions.

Some of the depositions were unsealed last year and a further tranche were opened in July.

The selective release of the documents was described as "unfair" by Ms Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies.

Refusing to overturn the lower court’s decision, the appeal court dismissed as "meritless" Maxwell’s argument that her interests should supersede the principle of public access to the documents.