The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear Ghislaine Maxwell's bid to overturn her conviction for helping the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, steering clear of a case that continues to hound President Donald Trump and his administration.
Judges turned down the appeal by Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein's former girlfriend, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty in 2021 by a jury in New York on charges including sex trafficking of a minor.
In doing so, the justices let stand a lower court's decision upholding Maxwell's conviction. They did not explain their reasoning in rejecting the appeal.
Maxwell's lawyers contend her conviction was invalid because a non-prosecution and plea agreement that federal prosecutors made with Epstein in Florida in 2007 also shielded his associates and should have barred her criminal prosecution in New York.
"We are, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell's case," said lawyer David Oscar Markus. "But this fight isn't over. Serious legal and factual issues remain and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done."
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Maxwell was arrested in 2020 and convicted the following year after being accused by federal prosecutors of recruiting and grooming girls for sexual encounters with Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
Mr Trump and his administration have been trying to quell a political furore that erupted after the Justice Department's decision not to release files from its investigation of Epstein – despite earlier pledges to do so – infuriated some of Trump's most loyal followers.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The case has long been the subject of conspiracy theories, considering his rich and powerful friends and the circumstances of his death. Mr Trump was friendly with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, and their interactions faced renewed scrutiny this year.
THE BIO
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Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
