Ghislaine Maxwell says she hadn't been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein for more than 10 years before his death

• Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell filed court documents on Friday asking for their client to be released on bail as she awaits trial on sex-trafficking charges.
• Her lawyers said despite the media's focus on Maxwell, she hadn't spoken with Jeffrey Epstein — her former associate and boyfriend — for more than a decade before his August death.
• Her lawyers also cited COVID-19 as a concern in requesting her release from jail.

Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell said she hadn't been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein for more than a decade before he died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges last year.

Maxwell, a former girlfriend and associate of Epstein, was arrested last week on charges including inciting minors to travel to engage in sexual acts and the transportation of a minor with intent to engage in sexual acts. Prosecutors say she helped lure at least three girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.

In court papers filed on Friday requesting Maxwell be released on bail, her lawyers, Mark Cohen and Jeffrey Pagliuca, said the media tried to "substitute her" for Epstein in the wake of the disgraced financier's death.

"The simplest point is the most critical one: Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein," they wrote in the filing.

In the filing, Maxwell's lawyers deny the charges against her and try to distance her from Epstein.

"On August 10, 2019, Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client — wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein — even though she'd had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade, had never been charged with a crime or been found liable in any civil litigation, and has always denied any allegations of claimed misconduct," Maxwell's lawyers wrote. "Many of these stories and online posts were threatening and harassing to our client and those close to her."

The lawyers said Maxwell wasn't named in the 2019 Epstein indictment, "despite the fact that the government has been investigating this case for years."

"Far from 'hiding,' she has lived in the United States since 1991, has litigated civil cases arising from her supposed ties to Epstein, and has not left the country even once since Epstein's arrest a year ago, even though she was aware of the pending, and highly publicized, criminal investigation," they wrote. "She should be treated like any other defendant who comes before this Court, including as to bail."

Maxwell's lawyers also cited concerns over the novel coronavirus as one of the reasons Maxwell should be released while awaiting trial, saying that if she remains detained, her "health will be at serious risk and she will not be able to receive a fair trial."

Maxwell is being held at New York's Metropolitan Detention Center, just 5 miles from the jail where Epstein died last year. An official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that the jail has taken special measures to ensure Maxwell doesn't take her own life while behind bars.

Read the full court filing below:

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