Ghislaine Maxwell files emergency appeal to block release of deposition on her sex life

The deposition is scheduled for release on Aug. 3, unless the appeals court orders a stay or requests further arguments. Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, on Thursday urged a U.S. appeals court to block the release of a deposition about her sex life, saying it could destroy her ability to get a fair trial against criminal charges she aided the late financier's sexual abuse of girls. Maxwell filed the request with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan one day after a federal judge rejected her claim that her need for confidentiality outweighed the public's right to see the April 2016 deposition.

"Absent a stay from this court, it will forever let the cat out of the bag," Maxwell's lawyers wrote. The deposition is scheduled for release on Aug. 3, unless the appeals court orders a stay or requests further arguments.

Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. The deposition was taken in a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit against the British socialite by Virginia Giuffre, who had accused Epstein of having kept her as a "sex slave" with Maxwell's assistance.

It is among more than 80 documents that U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered released from that case. Maxwell's lawyers have accused Giuffre of leaking the deposition, and "in conjunction with the government" setting a "perjury trap" for their client.

They said Maxwell had been promised confidentiality before being forced to answer many "personal, sensitive, and allegedly incriminatory questions," only to be sandbagged when prosecutors quoted from the deposition in her indictment. Maxwell was arrested on July 2 at a New Hampshire home where prosecutors said she was hiding out.

She was denied bail and is being held in a Brooklyn jail after the judge overseeing her criminal case called her a flight risk. "The government has indicted Ghislaine Maxwell. The media has all but convicted her," Maxwell's lawyers said. "All Ms. Maxwell is asking is that this court have a fair opportunity to review the merits of the district court's decision before the deposition material is unsealed for all time."

Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had pleaded not guilty.