Ghislaine Maxwell Claims New Epstein Files Help Her Case – This Judge Says Quite the Opposite

Longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell saw an opportunity and took it: She turned to the millions of documents recently released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) in an effort to bolster her latest attempt to overturn her convictions.

There was just one rather significant problem: According to U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, the newly released material doesn’t exonerate Maxwell. In fact, per a 67-page opinion and order released Tuesday morning, Engelmayer found quite the opposite.

In his decision, Engelmayer determined that, to the extent the material is relevant, “far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges.”

Here’s how we got to this latest legal twist in the saga:

Maxwell was convicted in December 2021 on five felony counts stemming from her participation with Jeffrey Epstein in the sexual abuse of underage girls.

In June 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals later affirmed her convictions and sentence, and the Supreme Court declined to take up her appeal in October 2025.

She then filed this pro se (i.e., without legal representation) § 2255 petition, a post-conviction effort to have her conviction and sentence vacated.

That old adage that “He who represents himself has a fool for a client” proves true here, as Engelmayer describes the petition and supplements as “lengthy and rambling” and “discursive.”

Enter the Epstein Files

Maxwell supplemented her arguments with materials the Department of Justice (DOJ) publicly released pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed and the president signed in November 2025. That law required the DOJ, subject to specified exceptions, to release its unclassified records and investigative materials concerning Epstein and Maxwell.

The release of the documents gave Maxwell an obvious new angle: contend that the newly disclosed government records supported her claims that her prosecution or trial was constitutionally defective.

But Engelmayer’s overall assessment of Maxwell’s claims is brutal: “all meritless and all or almost all are frivolous.” And most are procedurally barred because she already raised them on appeal or could have.

For instance, Maxwell has long maintained that Epstein’s 2007 non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida also protected her from prosecution in New York. But she lost that argument before, including at the appellate court level.

In her renewed effort, she cited newly released EFTA records as evidence that the Florida investigation extended into New York and therefore the agreement should have barred her prosecution in New York. However, as Engelmayer points out, one exhibit she characterized as reflecting an “expanding New York investigation” doesn’t mention New York at all.

Even worse for Maxwell — another newly released communication says Epstein’s victims had been told the NPA “did not extend to New York or other jurisdictions.” Thus, Engelmayer concludes: Those records are either irrelevant or actually underscore the correctness of the earlier rulings against Maxwell.

And Maxwell’s effort to further distance herself from Epstein fell flat on its face: She challenged a sentencing enhancement based partly on the contention that by 2002 she’d “largely exited the Epstein household.”

But Engelmayer notes that Maxwell herself undercut that premise during her July 2025 interview with then-Deputy AG Todd Blanche. Asked about her role, she said she ran Epstein’s properties and staff, oversaw budgets, and remained “still around”; Epstein continued paying her roughly $250,000 annually until 2009, which seems like rather generous compensation for someone claiming to have retreated from Epstein’s orbit.

Ultimately, Engelmayer denies Maxwell’s petition, leaving her convictions and sentence in place. For all the speculation over what might be lurking in the newly released Epstein files, Maxwell has now tried to use them to undermine her own prosecution. At least in Engelmayer’s courtroom, they accomplished precisely the opposite.

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