[ad_1]
A Manhattan federal court judge on Friday denied Ghislaine Maxwell’s request to temporarily keep her motion for a new trial under wraps.
Judge Alison Nathan ruled the request is not “necessary to protect the integrity of any inquiry” and does not fit the standards normally applied to redactions of judicial documents.
In a Feb. 1 letter, Maxwell’s attorneys had argued that her motion for a new trial should remain under seal either until the judge ruled on it, or until a hearing was held to address the request.
Maxwell requested a retrial last month after a juror on the panel that convicted her revealed he had been sexually abused as a child in a number of press interviews following the trial.
The juror, identified by his first and middle names, Scotty David, said he couldn’t recall how he answered questions about past sex abuse that were posed to potential panelists in a questionnaire before the trial.
David told Reuters that he “flew through” the questionnaire, but was sure that he answered the question truthfully.
Maxwell’s attorneys argued the juror “violated” the convicted madam’s right to a fair trial with his jury questionnaire responses. They also claimed the juror “corrupted the voir dire” — the process during jury selection when the judge and attorneys question potential jurors to determine if they can be impartial in the case.
The defense team told Nathan that unsealing the motion would give the juror “an improper preview of information he does not have and should never have, or at the very least should not have at this point in the process.”
Among the information, the lawyers were trying to keep from the juror were his “exact” questionnaire responses that have not been made public.
But Nathan ruled she was “unpersuaded by the defendant’s concern that media interest in the motion warrants temporary sealing of the documents in their entirety.”
She said both sides must instead propose redactions to the motion.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted in late December of sex trafficking and other charges for luring and grooming underage girls for her longtime companion, Jeffrey Epstein, to abuse between 1994 and 2004.
She faces up to 65 years in prison.
[ad_2]