United States v. Maxwell

United States of America, v. Ghislaine Maxwell, Defendant.

No. 20-CR-330 (AJN)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

April 29, 2022

OPINION & ORDER

ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judge, sitting by designation.

In 2020, the Defendant Ghislaine Maxwell was indicted for her participation in a scheme to entice, transport, and traffic underage girls for sexual abuse by and with Jeffrey Epstein her longtime companion. The Government at trial presented extensive witness testimony from multiple victim witnesses and others, as well as corroborating documentary and physical evidence. The testimony and other trial evidence established the Defendant's role in grooming and recruiting underage girls and using the cover of massage to perpetrate sexual abuse.

Following the thirteen-day trial, the Court submitted to the jury the six counts in the Indictment. The jury deliberated for over five days and returned a verdict of guilty on five of the six counts. Two of these counts of conviction charged the Defendant with substantive violations of federal statutes that target sexual abuse of minors-the Mann Act as to Count Four and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as to Count Six. The other three counts of conviction, Counts One, Three and Five, charged the Defendant with conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to violate those same statutes from 1994 to 2004.

Before the Court are the Defendant's post-trial motions making four alternative arguments for vacating some or all of her five counts of conviction. First, the Defendant argues that judgment may be imposed on only one of the three conspiracy counts (i.e., Counts One Three, and Five) because they are “multiplicitous”-meaning that they all charge the same offense-and therefore entry of judgment on all three counts would violate the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause. Second, she requests under Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that the Court acquit her of all counts because there is insufficient evidence for any rational juror to find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Third, the Defendant moves to vacate Counts One, Three, and Four under Rule 33 because, she claims, the convictions were based on a constructive amendment of, or variance from, the Indictment. And fourth, she requests that the Court vacate all five convictions because the Government intentionally and prejudicially delayed its prosecution.

With one exception, the motions are denied. The Rule 29 motion challenging all counts of conviction is denied because the jury's guilty verdicts were readily supported by the extensive witness testimony and documentary evidence admitted at trial. Further, those counts of conviction matched the core of criminality charged in the Indictment, presented by the Government at trial, and on which the jury was accurately instructed. The Defendant's contrary claim of a constructive amendment of or variance from the Indictment rests on an implausible and speculative interpretation of a single ambiguous jury note. In addition, the Court concludes that the Government did not intentionally delay its prosecution and, in any event, the Defendant's ability to prepare a defense was not prejudiced by any delay.

The Court does conclude, however, that the three conspiracy counts charge the same offense, and, accordingly, are multiplicitous. The Government concedes that Count One is multiplicitous with Count Three but argues that Count Three and Count Five nevertheless involve distinct conspiracies. The Court concludes that Count Five, like Counts One and Three, charges the Defendant's participation in the same decade-long unlawful agreement with the Defendant's continuous coconspirator, Jeffrey Epstein. The overarching conspiracy-which, as the Government argued and proved at trial, employed a single “playbook” to groom and sexually abuse underage girls-constitutes a single conspiracy offense with multiple victims. Because the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits the Court from imposing multiple punishments for the same offense, the Court will enter judgment on Count Three alone among the conspiracy counts. This legal conclusion in no way calls into question the factual findings made by the jury. Rather, it underscores that the jury unanimously found-three times over-that the Defendant is guilty of conspiring with Epstein to entice, transport, and traffic underage girls for sexual abuse.

I. The Court grants the Defendant's multiplicity claim.

The Defendant was indicted on six counts: (1) conspiracy to entice individuals under the age of seventeen to travel in interstate commerce with intent to engage in sexual activity illegal under New York law, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; (2) enticement of individuals under the age of seventeen to travel in interstate commerce with intent to engage in sexual activity illegal under New York law, and aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2422, 2; (3) conspiracy to transport individuals under the age of seventeen to travel in interstate commerce with intent to engage in sexual activity illegal under New York law, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; (4) transportation of an individual under the age of seventeen with intent to engage in sexual activity illegal under New York law, and aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2423(a), 2; (5) conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of individuals under the age of eighteen, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; and (6) sex trafficking of an individual under the age of eighteen, and aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591, 2. S2 Indictment, Dkt. No. 187.^[1]

In two prior pretrial motions, the Defendant requested that the Court dismiss two of the three conspiracy counts-that is, Counts One, Three, and Five-as multiplicitous, given that all three were premised on the Defendant's participation in a single criminal conspiracy with Epstein. To punish her for all three counts, she argued, would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. In opinions dated April 16, 2021, and August 13, 2021, the Court denied those motions as premature because the Double Jeopardy Clause would prohibit only multiple punishments for the same offense, but not indictments for the same offense. United States v. Maxwell, 534 F.Supp.3d 299, 322 (S.D.N.Y. 2021) (citing United States v. Josephberg, 459 F.3d 350, 355 (2d Cir. 2006)); United States v. Maxwell, No. 20-CR-330 (AJN), 2021 WL 3591801, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 13, 2021).

Because the jury convicted the Defendant on all three conspiracy counts, the Defendant now requests that the Court impose judgment on only one of these counts. Maxwell Br. at 19, Dkt. No. 600. The Government concedes that Counts One and Three are multiplicitous and agrees that the Court should not impose judgment on Count One, but it argues that Counts Three and Five are distinct offenses premised on distinct criminal conspiracies, and so the Court should impose judgment on both. Gov. Br. at 24, Dkt. No. 621.

On consent of both parties, the Court will not impose judgment on Count One because it is multiplicitous. For the reasons that follow, the Court further grants the Defendant's motion to also not enter judgment on Count Count Five because it is also multiplicitous with Count Three.

A. Applicable law

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person shall “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const. amend. V. That guarantee “serves principally as a restraint on courts and prosecutors, ” ensuring that a court does not “exceed its legislative authorization by imposing multiple punishments for the same offense.” Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 165 (1977); see also Morris v. Reynolds, 264 F.3d 38, 48 (2d Cir. 2001). An indictment is multiplicitous, and therefore implicates double jeopardy, “when it charges a single offense as an offense multiple times, in separate counts, when, in law and fact, only one crime has been committed.” Maxwell, 534 F.Supp.3d at 322 (quoting United States v. Chacko, 169 F.3d 140, 145 (2d Cir. 1999)). “A claim of multiplicity cannot succeed, however, ‘unless the charged offenses are the same in fact and in law.'” United States v. Jones, 482 F.3d 60, 72 (2d Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Estrada, 320 F.3d 173, 180 (2d Cir. 2003)).

If the two offenses at issue are both conspiracies charged under the same statute, then the multiplicity inquiry turns on whether the two conspiracies are the same “in fact, ” meaning they involve the same agreement. United States v. Araujo, No. 17-CR-438 (VEC), 2018 WL 3222527, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. July 2, 2018) (citing United States v. Ansaldi, 372 F.3d 118, 124-25 (2d Cir. 2004)); United States v. Gaskin, 364 F.3d 438, 454 (2d Cir. 2004) (“[T]o survive a double jeopardy attack, the government would have to show that the two schemes involved ‘distinct' agreements.”). Yet “whether the evidence shows a single conspiracy or more than one conspiracy is often not determinable as a matter of law or subject to bright-line formulations.” Jones, 482 F.3d at 72. Rather, the parties agree that the Court's inquiry is guided by the Second Circuit's Korfant factors. See, e.g., United States v. Diallo, 507 Fed.Appx. 89, 91 (2d Cir. 2013) (summary order) (citing United States v. Korfant, 771 F.2d 660, 662 (2d Cir. 1985) (per curiam)); United States v. Villa, 744 Fed.Appx. 716, 720 (2d Cir. 2018) (summary order). Those factors include:

(1) the criminal offenses charged in successive indictments; (2) the overlap of participants; (3) the overlap of time; (4) similarity of operation; (5) the existence of common overt acts; (6) the geographic scope of the alleged conspiracies or location where overt acts occurred; (7) common objectives; and (8) the degree of

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