A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell says she should be set free like Bill Cosby was, but legal experts say that's highly unlikely
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Bill Cosby was freed from prison on June 30 due to a technicality known as a non-prosecution agreement.
A lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell says she should benefit from the same quirk.
Legal experts tell Insider it's unlikely the Epstein agreement would protect Maxwell in New York, where she's charged.
When the comedian Bill Cosby was unexpectedly freed from prison Wednesday after a state Supreme Court ruling, the news gave a much-needed boost to another high-profile criminal defendant.
A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of the deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein, argued in a New York Daily News op-ed that she should be free from prosecution due to the same procedural issue that overturned Cosby's sexual assault conviction.
Both Cosby and Epstein benefited from an unusual deal known as a non-prosecution agreement - essentially, prosecutors vowed not to press criminal charges in exchange for other forms of cooperation. The Pennsyvlania Supreme Court overturned Cosby's conviction because he was criminally charged after he agreed to testify in a civil case, waiving his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In 2007, Epstein had struck a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution. Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Markus, argued in the op-ed that his client, who now faces federal sex trafficking charges, is covered by the broad non-prosecution agreement that protected Epstein.
"When Epstein agreed to plead guilty and go to state prison, the United States agreed not to prosecute him or his alleged co-conspirators," Markus wrote. "This is in black and white: 'The United States ... will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.'"
Legal experts told Insider Markus' argument won't hold up in court. Epstein's 2007 non-prosecution agreement was forged by federal prosecutors in Florida, but Maxwell is charged in an entirely different jurisdiction, the Southern District of New York.
"The success of these arguments depend on what the deal says," said Paul Cassell, a former federal judge and current law professor at the University of Utah. "It's a standard feature of American criminal justice - prosecutors can extend immunity only within the territory they have jurisdiction over."
Markus argued in the op-ed that the jurisdictional issues make "no sense," since all federal prosecutors represent the same entity.
"We have one federal government, and the agreement says clearly that the United States would not prosecute Maxwell," he wrote.
Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor, said that type of logic was likely too big of a stretch for an appeals court to accept.
She said non-prosecution agreements are so rare - typically used only in corporate crime cases - that judges will be unlikely to look favorably on them in violent or sex crimes cases going forward.
"I don't think courts are going to be likely to do these expansively," Levinson said. "Given the pushback on these agreements in the first place, I think they'll be narrowly construed."
Read the original article on Insider
