US District Court Judge Allison Nathan told federal prosecutors on Friday that they must reveal the “identities of any unnamed co-conspirators” they plan to reference during Ghislaine Maxwell’s upcoming sex trafficking trial.
Nathan nixed the government’s argument that to do so would cause “potential danger to co-conspirators” or risk “compromising continuing investigations,” the New York Post reported.
“The Government provides no explanation for this purported harm and none is apparent to the Court,” Nathan wrote. “Thus, the Court finds that this concern alone does not outweigh the risk of surprise to the Defendant in this case or the need for the parties to litigate co-conspirator issues in advance of trial to ensure the absence of delay.”
Maxwell, the 59-year-old British socialite accused of pimping for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, has pleaded not guilty to those charges as well as perjury charges related to a civil case filed by Virginia Giuffre, who has accused Prince Andrew of sexual abuse. Maxwell settled that lawsuit for an undisclosed amount but is now accused of lying in her deposition for that lawsuit, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Epstein was arrested and charged with sex crimes in 2019 but died in jail from an apparent suicide before the case came to trial.
Maxwell has been held without bail since her arrest last summer. Her trial is set to begin on November 29.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast
[Featured image: FILE – In this July 2, 2020, file photo, Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a news conference in New York. Maxwell, criminally charged with aiding Jeffrey Epstein in his sexual abuse of teenage girls, testified in 2016 that she had no memory of anything amiss on his properties in the 2000s despite the accusations from dozens of women and girls that they were sexually abused by Epstein. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)]
