Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers want her trial delayed until 2022 so they can review evidence including 2,100 'highly confidential pictures not produced during discovery'
Just weeks after being hit with new sex trafficking charges, Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers have requested a delay in her trial so they can review thousands of 'highly confidential' pictures that were not produced during discovery.
Lawyers for Maxwell wrote a letter to Judge Alison Nathan asking for the trial delay on Thursday.
The lawyers claim they need to comb over evidence again, including the 2,100 'highly confidential' pictures, due to the two new charges.
The new charges stem from the alleged grooming of a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual acts with Epstein from 2001 to 2004 at his Palm Beach home.
Ghislaine Maxwell (right, with Jeffrey Epstein) is seeking a delay in her July trial
The defense argued that more time was needed to look at evidence after two new charges
The indictment claimed Maxwell groomed the girl to engage in sex acts with Epstein by giving her gifts and cash.
A significant amount of evidence had already been given to the lawyers, but they want it to be 're-reviewed' because of the new charges.
Maxwell's attorneys said they received tens of thousands of documents relating to evidence from 226 witnesses, many of whom the prosecution do not intend to call to the stand, but that they had not had enough time to review them.
The lawyers argued the prosecution had taken months to investigate the allegations and build their case, but had not afforded the defense the same time with the voluminous evidence.
The court heard the defense would be hard-pressed to prepare for the trial 'before mid-January'.
Lawyers said they felt forced to request the delay even though it would 'prolong Ms Maxwell's miserable and punishing detention,
'But the need for time to properly prepare Ms Maxwell's defence as a result of the additional charges requiring us to do so, causing Ms Maxwell to reluctantly agree to this request'.
The defense also argued that technology is holding up their effort to review the pictures, according to the New York Post.
'We cannot adequately prepare for a trial containing the new charges and a substantially expanded conspiracy in the less than three months remaining,' her lawyers said.
'We have tried to use an FBI-supplied laptop and hard drive to review approximately 2,100 'Highly Confidential' photographs that were not produced to us in discovery,' they said.
'Because of technical issues with the laptop, we still have not completed the review.'
Charges were announced against Maxwell after she was arrested in July 2020
The charges were only added now because pandemic travel restrictions had prevented police conducting interviews with the alleged victim until January 2021 because she lives 'more than a day's drive away from New York'.
Further evidence gathering investigations took another two months to be complete, adding to the delay, the Times reported.
Prosecutors said the charges would not hugely extend the length of Maxwell's trial, which is set to start on July 12, and is expected to last four weeks.
They said they plan to 'present a streamlined case focusing primarily on the four minor victims'.
Maxwell has been in jail since she was arrested by the FBI on July 2, 2020 in Bradford, New Hampshire.
Maxwell was charged with enticement of minors, sex trafficking of children, and perjury for allegedly helping procure underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein, then allegedly lying about it under oath.
Pictured: The Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Courthouse, which is where Maxwell's trial is set to take place
She was denied bail and is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Epstein himself was facing sex trafficking charges when he committed suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019.
While Maxwell has been denied bail several times, allegations have emerged about her keeping her cell in poor conditions, including not flushing the toilet after use.
'Blaming Ms. Maxwell for the filth of her severely restricted environment is utterly misplaced,' her lawyers said in a letter to the judge last week, according to Fox News.
'To suggest she willingly lives in squalor is absurd. In an effort to wield power, the guards use cleaning as a punishment.'
Pictured: The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Maxwell is currently serving
Her lawyers claim there's anything from mold to vermin to cockroaches at her detention center.
They also said that Maxwell's health is declining, including her eyesight and her hair, which is supposedly thinning.
'No amount of gloss put on Ms. Maxwell's conditions of confinement can erase the fact that she remains in de facto solitary confinement, overmanaged by multiple guards, and surveilled by multiple cameras 24 hours per day,' her attorney added.
Meanwhile, Maxwell's family week launched a website to support her, saying that she is 'no monster' and protesting her innocence.
The site, realghislaine.com, has her family sharing biographical details, information about her upcoming trial, jail conditions, and even the books Maxwell is reading while imprisoned.
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