
Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking conviction will stand despite a juror’s failure to disclose pretrial that he’d been a victim of childhood sexual abuse, per a U.S. judge Friday.
Maxwell was convicted in December of helping the millionaire Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse several teenage girls, many from Palm Beach county.
U.S. Judge Alison J. Nathan declined to order a new trial weeks after questioning the juror about why he failed to relate his experience as an abuse survivor on a questionnaire during the jury selection process.
The juror claimed he “skimmed the questionnaire way too fast” and did not intentionally give the wrong answer to a question about sex abuse.
“I didn’t lie in order to get on this jury,” he said.
Maxwell’s lawyers said they potentially could have objected to the man’s presence on the jury if he told the truth on the grounds that he might not be fair to a person accused of a similar crime.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges after a monthlong trial. She still maintains her innocence.
Epstein killed himself in August 2019 as he awaited trial at a federal jail in New York on related sex trafficking charges.