WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on Oct. 6 declined to decide whether Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was wrongly prosecuted for sex trafficking, avoiding a politically sensitive issue that has bedeviled President Donald Trump.

The justices rejected an appeal from Maxwell, who argued that a deal Epstein struck with federal prosecutors in Florida should have prevented her from being charged in New York.

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for trafficking a minor to engage in sex acts with Epstein, has also sought help from Trump.

Maxwell’s attorneys want Trump to pardon or commute her sentence in exchange for her cooperation in the Epstein investigation and broader sex trafficking issues.

She spent two days talking to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July as the administration scrambled to respond to calls for more transparency over what Epstein did and who else may have been involved. Around that time, federal officials moved Maxwell from a federal prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Oct. 6 she was unaware if Trump has been asked to pardon Maxwell.

“It’s not something I’ve heard discussed,” Leavitt said. “We don’t comment on clemency requests that may or may not have been made.”

Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Influential MAGA voices such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon have insisted for years that Epstein's suicide was suspicious and that his powerful associates were hidden.

Epstein had been charged in New York following an outcry about his case and a 2007 plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida that many criticized, saying it was overly lenient. The deal also protected potential co-conspirators from criminal charges.

Maxwell says Epstein's 2007 plea deal should have protected her from being prosecuted on related charges. But the Department of Justice said the deal was valid only in the Southern District of Florida, not in the Southern District of New York, where Maxwell was tried and convicted.

Although the government acknowledged that lower courts are divided over when an agreement reached in one federal district is binding on prosecutors in other districts, the DOJ said Maxwell’s case is not a good vehicle for the Supreme Court to decide that issue. That’s partly because some of the dispute turns on specific language in Epstein’s agreement.

The DOJ also said there’s no evidence that Epstein’s plea agreement was intended to help Maxwell.

“The government was not even aware of petitioner’s role in Epstein’s scheme at that time,” the department told the Supreme Court.

Maxwell’s attorney said the government was “asking for a blank check to rewrite its own promises after the fact.”

“Rather than grapple with the core principles of plea agreements, the government tries to distract by reciting a lurid and irrelevant account of Jeffrey Epstein’s misconduct,” her attorneys wrote. “But this case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did.”

Contributing: Bart Jansen

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court rejects appeal from Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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