Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has filed a sweeping habeas corpus petition that claims the U.S. Justice Department secretly protected associates of Jeffrey Epstein and violated her constitutional rights during her criminal prosecution.
Maxwell, now serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation, argues that her conviction should be overturned because prosecutors concealed settlements with as many as 25 men connected to Epstein. The allegation appears in court documents she filed on December 17 seeking, as lawyers call it, “extraordinary relief” in federal court.
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“New evidence reveals that there were 25 men with whom the plaintiff lawyers reached secret settlements — that could equally be considered as co-conspirators,” the habeas corpus petition states.
According to the petition, those settlements meant men who could have provided evidence or testimony were never disclosed to Maxwell or her defense team. “None of these men have been prosecuted, and none has been revealed to Petitioner; she would have called them as witnesses had she known,” the filing says.
Maxwell’s filings also argue that four alleged co-conspirators mentioned in other legal agreements were known to investigators yet never charged.
The petition contends the concealment of these agreements deprived Maxwell of a fair trial and violated her constitutional rights. It also asserts prosecutors failed to honor the terms of Epstein’s controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement in Florida.
Prosecutors and the Justice Department have not yet responded publicly to Maxwell’s latest claims.
The filing arrives amid intense scrutiny of the department’s handling of files tied to Epstein and Maxwell. The bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed into law last year, required the Department of Justice to make public all unclassified documents related to the investigation by December 19, 2025.
In a recent court filing, the department acknowledged it had reviewed “several million” pages of material and expects to finish the review and redactions “in the near term,” while declining to provide a firm completion date. “We expect to complete the review and redaction process in the near term,” Attorney General Pam Bondi and other DOJ officials wrote.
In a letter to a federal judge, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) called the department’s disclosure of only a fraction of the files out of millions a “flagrant violation” of the law. “Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” their letter stated.
A federal judge recently declined to appoint an independent monitor to oversee the release of the records, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
Legal analysts say Maxwell’s petition faces a steep uphill climb, as habeas corpus challenges are rare and typically require clear new evidence or fundamental legal errors.
Source: uPolitics