The attorneys representing Ghislaine Maxwell argue that she should face no more than four or five years in prison, as opposed to the possible 30-year sentence she faces.
After being found guilty of soliciting adolescent females for Jeffrey Epstein, the British socialite will be punished later this month.
The British socialite is currently incarcerated, and her legal team claims she is the target of a serious death threat from a fellow inmate who allegedly offered money for her assassination.
Maxwell was convicted in December of recruiting adolescent females for sexual abuse from 1994 to 2004 for US businessman Jeffrey Epstein.
In a Manhattan federal court filing, her legal team argued that Maxwell deserves mercy, calling it “a miscarriage of justice” for her to receive the same term as Epstein.
The attorneys said, “Epstein was the mastermind, the primary abuser, and he coordinated the crimes for his gain.”
“Indeed, Ghislaine Maxwell would not be here if she had never had the terrible misfortune of meeting Jeffrey Epstein almost three decades ago.”
The prosecution at Maxwell’s trial branded her as “dangerous” and Epstein’s “criminal associate.” On June 28, she will be punished for five of the six counts on which she was indicted.
In 2019, Epstein committed suicide while awaiting a federal sex trafficking prosecution in New York.
Maxwell’s attorneys stated that she “is not an heiress, criminal, or vacuous socialite” and has not deserved the “drumbeat of public outrage demanding that she be imprisoned for life.”
They argued that she should be granted mercy because her life has been devastated and she has endured harsh and punitive jail conditions since her arrest in July 2020.
Probation officers suggested a 20-year sentence, but her conviction may result in a 25- to 30-year sentence, they added.
Her attorneys asserted that probation miscalculated the parameters and that a fair computation would have resulted in a prison sentence of no more than four to five years.
A fellow female inmate allegedly told at least three other inmates that she had been given money to murder Maxwell and that she intended to strangle her in her sleep, according to Maxwell’s legal team, who addressed her time spent behind bars.
They stated that she was placed on suicide watch following the decision of the trial.
In April, a judge refused to overturn Maxwell’s conviction after a juror revealed during deliberations that he had been the victim of childhood sexual assault.
