Mary Margaret Olohan
- A former lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein’s cohort Ghislaine Maxwell argued in a court filing Friday that his op-ed about Bill Cosby did not violate the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York’s rules.
- The opinion and reasoning in Cosby’s case “applies directly to Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” David Markus wrote in the June 30 op-ed, writing that “Despite its promise not to go after Maxwell, federal prosecutors in New York brought a federal case against her after Epstein died, arguing that it does not need to live up to the deal struck by federal prosecutors in Miami.”
- “But that reasoning makes no sense,” he added. “We have one federal government, and the agreement says clearly that the United States would not prosecute Maxwell.”
A former lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein’s cohort Ghislaine Maxwell argued in a court filing that his op-ed about Bill Cosby and Maxwell did not violate the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York’s rules.
The government submitted a letter bringing David Markus’ New York Daily News op-ed “Bill Cosby is free; Ghislaine Maxwell should be, too” to the court’s attention, Markus wrote in a Friday court filing released Monday. The former Maxwell attorney said that the government asked that the court “issue an order pursuant to Local Rule 23.1(h)” directed at Markus.
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court did the right thing when it threw out Bill Cosby’s convictions because prosecutors cheated,” Markus wrote in the June 30 op-ed.
The former Maxwell attorney argued that prosecutors had promised Cosby they wouldn’t prosecute him if he testified in civil cases against him, but then broke their promise and “used Cosby’s statements in those depositions to win a conviction against him.”
The opinion and reasoning in Cosby’s case “applies directly to Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” Markus said, noting that “Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty and struck a bargain with the prosecutors in Miami” and “in exchange for pleading guilty in state court, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed that it would not prosecute any of his alleged co-conspirators.”
“Despite its promise not to go after Maxwell, federal prosecutors in New York brought a federal case against her after Epstein died, arguing that it does not need to live up to the deal struck by federal prosecutors in Miami,” he wrote. “But that reasoning makes no sense. We have one federal government, and the agreement says clearly that the United States would not prosecute Maxwell.”
In the Friday court filing, Markus argued that his op-ed did not break any rules. The piece did not present any risk of “danger or prejudice” to Maxwell’s upcoming trial because the op-ed’s argument was already filed in public pleadings previously quoted by the media and did not disclose any confidential information, Markus said.
The former Maxwell attorney also argued that Maxwell, her family, and their counsel “have the right to respond to the numerous lawyers, witnesses, and surrogates who are speaking to the press and making it impossible for Ms. Maxwell to receive a fair trial.”
“The press has been unrelenting and overwhelmingly prejudicial in its coverage of Ms. Maxwell and her family, fueled by statements from involved parties about the matters at issue,” he continued. “It is not an understatement to say that 99.9% of the press coverage is pro-government and anti-Maxwell.
“The press has already tried and convicted he,” Markus said. “And the Government has done nothing to control its surrogates, which has only made the problem worse.”
He asked: “How can Ms. Maxwell be expected to receive a fair trial when lawyers for the accusers are holding press conferences, leaking information, and otherwise making wholly inappropriate comments to the press?”
Markus also argued that the government has created a “totally unlevel playing field” for Maxwell through “blowups, photographs, soundbites, inflammatory language, and strategic pauses to get the most impactful photo opportunity.” These are strategies designed to “stir up the press” and “inflame the passions of the public,” he wrote.
“And it worked,” the former Maxwell attorney added.
SDNY did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Epstein died of apparent suicide in a federal jail in New York City in August 2019. Maxwell, who has been accused of involvement in Epstein’s crimes against young women, was arrested by the FBI in July 2020.
A grand jury indicted her on charges of conspiracy to entice minors to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to these illegal sex acts, transportation of a minor to engage in illegal sex acts and perjury.
The victims were as young as 14 years old, the indictment said, noting that both Maxwell and Epstein “knew that certain victims were in fact under the age of 18.”
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