The U.S. government is willing to dismiss two perjury charges against Ghislaine Maxwell if her conviction for her role in recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein is allowed to stand, prosecutors have said.
The offer was put forward in a joint letter delivered on Monday to U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan from prosecutors and Maxwell’s defense team.
In the letter, prosecutors said that dismissing the perjury counts would be in line with victims’ “significant interests in bringing closure to this matter and avoiding the trauma of testifying again.”
Prosecutors also asked Nathan to sentence Maxwell, 60, in around three to four months’ time, with lawyers for the socialite expressing opposition to setting a timeline.
Maxwell’s attorneys said they believed one juror’s account of having been sexually abused in the past was a “compelling basis” to overturn their client’s conviction and grant a new trial.
Jan. 7, 202204:36
The juror’s experience, Maxwell’s attorneys said, “influenced the deliberations and convinced other members of the jury to convict Ms. Maxwell,” who faces up to 65 years in prison over her conviction.
“The defense therefore objects to setting a schedule for sentencing until this motion is resolved,” they said.
The development comes nearly two weeks after a jury found that Maxwell had played a major part in recruiting and grooming teenage girls to be sexually abused by her close confidant, Epstein, between 1994 and 2004. She was convicted on Dec. 29 of five federal sex trafficking charges.
A jury of six men and six women reached the verdict after six days of deliberations.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited his own sex trafficking trial.
The perjury charges in question center around allegations that Maxwell lied about what she knew about Epstein’s behavior in depositions taken in 2016 for a civil lawsuit.
Nathan had given Maxwell’s lawyers until Jan. 19 to offer a formal explanation for why her conviction should be overturned, with prosecutors given until Feb. 2 to respond.
Reuters contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
