Lawyers for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, found guilty of sex trafficking at the end of December, requested a new trial on Wednesday on the grounds that one of the jurors would have revealed during the deliberations to have himself been the victim of sexual abuse, which would have influenced other members of the jury, according to a court document.
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In this request dated Wednesday, the lawyers rely in particular on an article in the Daily Mail, in which one of the jurors confides in having summoned his memories of a victim during the deliberations. The defense thus sees there
"irrefutable grounds for a new trial".
“The juror told reporters that he had revealed (...) during the deliberations, that he had been the victim of sexual abuse and that he had described the memory he had of these events. According to the juror, this revelation influenced the deliberations and convinced the other members of the jury to condemn Ghislaine Maxwell ”,
write the defenders of Ghislaine Maxwell.
The incident is being taken seriously by the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office, which suggests that the court
"conduct an investigation"
and proposes a
"hearing"
on the matter
"in a month or so."
According to prosecutors, it is necessary to determine whether the juror indeed revealed, during the process of constituting the jury, that is to say before the trial, to have been the victim of sexual abuse. On this point, the juror remained rather vague in the interviews, saying he did not remember such a question, but ensuring that he answered honestly if it was asked.
After 40 hours of deliberation spread over five days, the jury had found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of five of the six charges against her, including the most serious, that of sex trafficking with her former companion, the financier Jeffrey Epstein, dead in prison in 2019. No sentencing date has yet been set.
In parallel, the American justice examines the civil lawsuits brought by one of the victims of the couple, Virginia Giuffre, against the British prince Andrew, whom she accuses of having raped her in 2001, when she was 17 years old.
Prince Andrew, who dated the Epstein-Maxwell couple, has always vigorously denied these accusations.