Ghislaine Maxwell’s siblings on Monday filed a complaint to the United Nations, calling her pre-trial detention an act of “unprecedented discrimination” and accusing U.S. authorities of trampling the “narrow line between justice and revenge.”
Maxwell, who is being held without bail ahead of her federal trial in New York City, was a confidante of Jeffrey Epstein — the millionaire financier and accused sex trafficker, who died by suicide in 2019 while in federal custody.
The British socialite Maxwell is facing a host of charges, accusing her of helping Epstein groom girls and young women for nonconsensual sex.
Her trial is slated to begin next week.
Maxwell’s brothers and sisters filed their complaint to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, denouncing a judge’s repeated rejections of bail.
“This is unprecedented discrimination, the like of which has never seen before: All her applications for bail have been rejected, with no regard for the security offered,” according to a statement by family lawyers Francois Zimeray and Jessica Finelle, based in Paris.
“It is as if Ghislaine Maxwell is suffering the consequences for the failure of the U.S. Administration to preserve the life of Jeffrey Epstein and secure his appearance at trial.”
Maxwell has been in custody since July of last year and her requests for home detention denied. Prosecutors have opposed any bail for Maxwell, claiming she poses an “extreme flight risk.”
Defense lawyers said she’s being unfairly treated and kept in terrible jail conditions as she awaits trial.
“There is a narrow line between justice and revenge,” according to Zimeray and Finelle. “We are not fighting against the complainants but against arbitrariness. In the court of public opinion, Ms. Maxwell is presumed guilty, convicted and demonized before any trial. The U.S. prosecution authorities have not sought to mitigate the effects of this demonization.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York declined comment on Tuesday.
The U.N. committee has no standing in federal court and the family lawyers said this international petition is being made apart from Maxwell’s U.S. criminal court defense. Representatives for the U.N. Human Rights Office, which oversees the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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