British socialite has been denied a new trial on sex trafficking charges, after a juror in her case failed to disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child.
New York Judge Allison Nathan rejected Maxwell’s request for a retrial on Friday, and set her sentencing date for June 28.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December of trafficking and grooming underage girls for her then-boyfriend, the late , in the 1990s.
Her lawyer requested a retrial days after she was convicted in December because Juror 50, referred to as Scotty David, said he has been sexually abused but did not admit it in the jury selection process.
The juror told the media that he used his traumatic childhood experience to try to sway fellow jurors who were skeptical about some victim testimony.
On Friday, Maxwell’s attorney Bobbi Sternheim wrote to Nathan asking her to delay her decision on possibly granting his client a new trial due to the juror’s pending television interview.
But Nathan said that Maxwell’s attorneys failed to meet the requirements for a retrial. The judge wrote that the juror testified with credibility that he ‘skimmed way too fast’ over a questionnaire before Maxwell’s trial. The questionnaire asked prospective jurors if there had been subject to sexual abuse.
Juror 50 ‘was not biased and would not have been stricken for cause’ from serving on the jury ‘even if he had answered each question on the questionnaire accurately’, Nathan wrote in his ruling.
Maxwell was convicted of five felony counts in a US District Court in Manhattan on December 29. One of them was conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sexual acts.
Epstein, 66, died while awaiting his sex trafficking trial in August 2019. Authorities ruled that he hung himself in his jail cell.
Maxwell’s sentence could entail decades behind bars.
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