Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers say an indictment should be thrown out because she wasn't sure what 'sexual activities' meant during a deposition
- Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers say a perjury indictment against her should be dropped.
- They say Maxwell didn't understand what "sexual activities" meant during a deposition.
- They also said "the 2000s" could mean "the period from 2000 to 2999" and Maxwell can't answer questions about the future.
Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers are arguing the accused sex trafficker's perjury indictment should be dismissed because she wasn't sure what the lawyer questioning her meant when asking about "sexual activities" with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and underage girls.
"What did the examiner mean by 'sexual activities'? Kissing? Holding hands?" her attorneys wrote in a memorandum filed in federal court. "The combination of toys, devices, and activities may be endless."
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 on charges related to grooming and sexually abusing young girls with Jeffrey Epstein in the late 1990s. She also faces one perjury charge for allegedly lying in a deposition she took about her relationship with Epstein, who was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019 but killed himself in jail.
In the memorandum seeking to dismiss the perjury indictment, Maxwell's attorneys say she didn't understand her questioner's questions about sex. The deposition was taken in 2016 as part of a separate civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre - who accused Epstein and Maxwell of sexual abuse - seeking to void the non-prosecution agreement between federal prosecutors and Epstein, as well as shake loose sealed documentation of Epstein's and Maxwell's activities.
Maxwell's lawyers argued that Maxwell didn't commit perjury. She just thought the questions asked were too vague, they said.
"Ms. Maxwell was asked if she 'was aware of the presence' of 'sex toys' or 'devices' used 'in sexual activities' in Epstein's Palm Beach house," they wrote. "The question was objected to for many reasons: it was compound and vague, contained numerous undefined terms, and lacked foundation."
"It is entirely unclear how someone may 'be aware of the presence' of these, apparently, spectral objects," the attorneys continued. "What exactly is a 'device' used in 'sexual activities?' Would bath oil, a tub, or a table qualify?"
The memorandum was filed on January 25 but unsealed Thursday night with redactions. It's among a series of motions and memorandums Maxwell's attorneys have filed trying to convince the judge to dismiss all the charges against her.
It makes other objections to the questions in the five-year-old deposition, arguing that many questions were "imprecise, boundless, ambiguous, and untethered."
For example, Maxwell's attorneys wrote, it wasn't clear what the question meant when asking about her activity in "the 2000s."
Citing the crowdsourced website Wiktionary, they argued "the 2000s" could refer to "the period from 2000 to 2999," and that Maxwell couldn't possibly see into the future.
"The answer, that Ms. Maxwell was unaware of 'sexual activities' spanning more than a millennium was accurate and truthful," they wrote.
Elsewhere in the 465-page deposition, Maxwell appeared to have an understanding of "the 2000s." When asked about how many planes Epstein owned, for example, on page 411, she answered "in the '90s he had one plane and at some point in the 2000s he had two planes," demonstrating a clear understanding of how decades are described.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her.
The latest motions are among a series of attempts Maxwell's lawyers have made to ward off a criminal trial, scheduled for July 2021. In January, her attorneys said the whole case should be dropped because the pool for the grand jury that indicted her didn't have enough Black and Hispanic people.