Maxwell's sex trafficking conviction upheld by US court

A US appeals court has upheld British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell's conviction for helping the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.

Maxwell, 62, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty in 2021 on five charges of recruiting and grooming four girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.

The 66-year-old was once Maxwell's boyfriend. The financier took his own life in jail in 2019, five weeks after being arrested and charged with sex trafficking.

A significant part of Maxwell's appeal focused on a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida, which she said barred her from being prosecuted in Manhattan 13 years later.

Her lawyer argued that references in Epstein's agreement to the "United States" signalled the government's intent to bar prosecutions nationwide of "potential co-conspirators" including four named in the agreement. Maxwell was not among them.

A prosecutor argued that the mention of the United States was a throwaway reference, and Epstein's agreement was intended to bind only prosecutors in Florida.

In addition, Maxwell argued in her appeal that prosecutors scapegoated her because Epstein was dead and the public demanded that someone else be held accountable.

She also said that her trial was tainted because one juror did not disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child.

Epstein ultimately pleaded guilty in 2008 to a Florida state prosecution charge and served 13 months in jail, an arrangement now widely considered too lenient.

His victims have since recouped hundreds of millions of dollars from his estate and from banks accused of handling transactions that financed his sexual misconduct.

The scandal has stained or destroyed the reputations of former friends including Britain's Prince Andrew and onetime Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley.

Maxwell has been serving her sentence in a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida. She is eligible for release in July 2037.