Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer thinks Ghislaine Maxwell should have her 20-year prison sentence commuted—and be given immunity to testify before Congress about the late financier.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is basically serving the sentence that Epstein would have gotten,” lawyer Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax’s Sunday Agenda on Sunday.
“She should never be in jail for 20 years. What should happen is, she should be free,” Dershowitz continued. “She should have her sentence commuted. She should then be called in front of Congress. Have Congress give her total immunity, and then she can tell everything she knows.”
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for trafficking girls to Epstein, who died while in federal custody in 2019.
Her sentence has come under scrutiny after the Department of Justice said earlier this month it did not possess a list of Epstein’s “clients,” leading some to question the nature of Epstein’s operation.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
Maxwell has tried to appeal the case, claiming a non-prosecution agreement Epstein brokered (with Dershowitz’s help) with a U.S. attorney’s office in Florida in 2006 also protected her. A federal appeals court rejected that claim, though Maxwell has since appealed her case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The DOJ rejected that argument in a brief to the Supreme Court earlier this month. “It would be extremely strange if the NPA left Epstein himself open to federal prosecution in another district — as eventually occurred… while protecting his coconspirators from prosecution anywhere,” Solicitor General John Sauer and two colleagues wrote.
Still, Dershowitz believes Maxwell’s testimony could shed more light on Epstein’s dealings due to the extensive time she spent with him.
“She knows everything, and I think she is improperly serving a sentence at this point in time and should be released for time served, and let her then disclose everything,” he said. “She would have no reason for withholding anything.”
Dershowitz, who has represented everyone from O.J. Simpson to President Donald Trump, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week that Epstein did not possess a client “list” but did have affiliates named by some of his alleged victims.
“They should be disclosed but the courts have ordered them sealed,” he wrote. “I know who they are. They don’t include any current officeholders. We don’t know whether the accusations are true.”
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