U.S. judge tells lawyers in the Gislain Maxwell case to pay attention to what they say Reuters

Author: Jonathan Stampel

NEW YORK (Reuters)-On Friday, the US judge overseeing the criminal case of Ghislaine Maxwell warned lawyers not to make out-of-court statements that could affect the upcoming sex trafficking trial of British socialites.

A month after Maxwell’s lawyer David Marcus stated that the overturning of actor Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction was justified to end Maxwell’s prosecution, Manhattan’s U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan ruled https://www.reuters.com/article /uk-people-ghislaine-maxwell-cosby -idUKKCN2E82DN accused her of nurturing and selling underage girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, 59, pleaded not guilty to eight charges. If found guilty, he will face up to 80 years in prison.

Prosecutors said that Marcus’s commentary in the New York Daily News violated the court’s prohibition on lawyers from publishing “extra-legal statements,” which may affect the jury.

Marcus said he is not subject to this rule because he is not a member of the Maxwell defense team. However, the judge pointed out that Marcus had handled Maxwell’s appeals on bail applications and claimed to be her lawyer in communication with the media and draft opinions.

“These facts mean that the public, including potential jurors, may regard Mr. Marcus as an authoritative source of information on outstanding matters and may consider his remarks to be accurate and reliable,” Nathan wrote.

The judge also stated that any lawyer in Maxwell’s case, including the prosecutor, could be subject to disciplinary action for violating court rules.

Marcus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor’s 2005 agreement did not accuse him of taking drugs and assaulting a woman named Andrea Constand, which allowed him to testify in her civil lawsuit against him, which meant that he was ten years later. Should not be subject to criminal charges.

Maxwell’s defense team stated that her case was similar because she had been immunized under Epstein’s 2007 non-prosecution agreement, but saw that the prosecutor used the civil lawsuit she filed against her in 2016 in criminal cases Testimony in. The prosecutor denied that Epstein’s agreement made Maxwell immune.