UPDATE 1-Ghislaine Maxwell loses motion to toss U.S. sex trafficking conviction

Ghislaine Maxwell on Friday lost a bid to overturn her December 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges for her role in helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls. In a written ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan upheld the British socialite's guilty verdict on three of the five counts - including sex trafficking - for which she was convicted, saying that the jury's verdict was supported by witness testimony and evidence presented at trial.

Ghislaine Maxwell on Friday lost a bid to overturn her December 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges for her role in helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.

In a written ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan upheld the British socialite's guilty verdict on three of the five counts - including sex trafficking - for which she was convicted, saying that the jury's verdict was supported by witness testimony and evidence presented at trial. Nathan rejected the guilty verdicts reached on two of the counts, potentially reducing Maxwell's sentence. Nathan said three of the charges effectively covered the same offense, so upheld only one of those three guilty verdicts.

She was convicted on five of six charges at trial. Epstein, himself a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

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