By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK -The U.S. judge who oversaw Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial on Friday said a possible “bombshell revelation” from one juror was no reason to delay her decision not to overturn the British socialite’s conviction and grant a new trial.
Circuit Judge Alison Nathan issued her decision five hours after one of Maxwell’s lawyers highlighted an interview the juror gave for “Ghislaine: Partner in Crime,” a yet-to-be-aired Paramount+ documentary examining Maxwell and her relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“The defendant provides no basis to conclude that the interview would affect the court’s analysis or conclusion,” Nathan wrote.
Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted on Dec. 29 on sex trafficking and four other counts for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.
The verdict became clouded when the juror, a man known as Juror 50, told media that he had revealed during jury deliberations that he had been sexually abused as a child, after failing to disclose it in a pretrial screening questionnaire.
After hearing from the juror in a March 8 hearing, Nathan concluded on Friday that the failure was “highly unfortunate, but not deliberate,” and that the juror was not biased against Maxwell and could serve fairly and impartially.
The trailer for the Paramount+ series said Juror 50’s “bombshell revelation” came in his “only in-depth interview” concerning Maxwell’s case. Juror 50’s lawyer said the interview took place on Jan. 4.
Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The network is a unit of Paramount Global, which until recently was known as ViacomCBS.
Nathan was elevated this week to the federal appeals court in Manhattan but retained jurisdiction over Maxwell’s case.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Mark Porter and Daniel Wallis)
