Law&Crime Sidebar - 25 Epstein Insiders Cut Secret Deals: Ghislaine Maxwell Bombshell Court Filing

Starting point is 00:00:00 Gleine Maxwell has just dropped a bombshell in a new court filing. She claims that 25 men reach secret deals, secret settlements in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, on top of four who were never indicted to. People who were not charged, the government allegedly hid this information from her. Got to break it down if this is true. What it could mean, who these people are, could she be set free? I got the perfect person to talk to a former federal prosecutor. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime.

Starting point is 00:00:29 I'm Jesse Weber. Look, before we get into this, as we're about to talk about the Glane Maxwell story, staying on top of the news today is so important. The problem is, with all the media bias these days, who knows what to believe? That is why I want to introduce you to our sponsor, Straight Arrow News. Okay, so Straight Arrow News is a personalized news platform that gives readers fact-based journalism to inform and build trust. Their media mist tool, it shows readers' headlines that are not seen on mainstream outlets

Starting point is 00:00:58 and provides useful commentary that cuts through all of that. sensational spin. Their site, their app, it also points out all the bias with a media landscape tool to group sources by political leaning so you have full transparency. If you are ready for a better way to get the news, then go to saan.com slash sidebar or just click the link in my description. This is straight hour news. Skip the drama, get the facts. Welcome back to trustworthy journalism. Okay, bombshell news in the continuing Jeffrey Epstein-Gelaine Maxwell saga. So according to a newly filed court document, Galane Maxwell, you know, the former associate, of Jeffrey Epstein. She was convicted of sex trafficking minors, sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Starting point is 00:01:36 She claims that 25 men, maybe friends, associates of the deceased financier, have been protected under secret settlements, secret deals, and that this information was not revealed to her during her trial. This is on top of what she claims are four other individuals, alleged co-conspirators, who were never charged. Obviously, I have thoughts. Is she telling the truth, particularly given her past in light of what she's trying to do now. If this is true, number one, wow. And who are these people? What is a secret settlement? Can we ever find out? Can the public ever find out? So I'm made of questions. I'm bringing on an expert right now to tackle all of this. I'm bringing on right now former federal prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, Gene Rossi. Gene's, thank you so much for

Starting point is 00:02:17 taking the time. Really, really appreciate it. Okay. Before I get into any of these alleged people who made secret deals, first, just to provide context, just so are all. audience understands, this is a part of Galane Maxwell's habeas corpus petition. Okay. Now, we know that the Supreme Court previously denied even hearing her appeal of her conviction. So for anybody who doesn't know, just generally speaking, Gene, what is a habeas corpus petition and what can a court do with it? That's a great question. The most famous habeas corpus petition that was granted is a famous case, I think, from the

Starting point is 00:02:56 1970s, Brewer v. Williams. It was a murder of a 10-year-old girl on Christmas Eve in Des Moines, Iowa. And it was a state case, and the defendant, Mr. Williams, had mental health challenges, was recently released from a mental institution, and he strangled and mutilated and killed a 12-year-old girl on Christmas Eve. And it went up through the state system, exhausted all appeals, and then Mr. Williams filed a petition in federal court called Brewer v. Williams. Who's Brewer? Brewer is the warden where he was being held. But that's a state case.

Starting point is 00:03:38 And it went up to the U.S. Supreme Court and they reversed. There was a violation of the right to counsel, new trial. He was convicted again. That's a state case. This is a federal case. And the same standards apply. Ms. Galane Maxwell is filing a civil lawsuit, not a criminal lawsuit. criminal, a civil lawsuit as a petitioner, alleging that constitutional provisions have been violated,

Starting point is 00:04:05 and she was convicted and it was a miscarriage of justice. She raises about nine points in her pro se petition that she allegedly wrote. She probably had some jailhouse lawyers, but 50 pages or give or take a few pages, it's a civil lawsuit. And the burden of proof is preponderance that she has to bear to show that a constitutional violation occurred. And what would be the violations in this case? Right. So just to be clear, in other words, this is somebody saying their detention is unlawful, right? And she's saying there's substantial new evidence that has come out, throw out her conviction, throw out her sentence, that when you look at lawsuits that were filed, government disclosures, investigative reports, documents, it's very

Starting point is 00:04:54 clear, right, that if she had this information, her whole trial would have been different. Her rights were violated. If I'm understanding it right, yeah, there's about nine points. Just before we get into it, how often are these successful? I mean, how often can this result in a conviction being thrown out or a sentence, you know, her being resentenced? You can give you two good examples. One involves Gene Rossi. I convicted somebody of drug trafficking in 2006. Her name was, I'll call her, I'll call her Barbara, fake name, fake name. Barbara Smith, that's a fake name. I convicted her. She got sentenced to seven years. About a year later, she filed a habeas corpus petition. She had counsel, great counsel,

Starting point is 00:05:39 and she argued that the prior attorneys did not give her good adequate information regarding plea negotiations. Judge T.S. Ellis III, who treated me like a son, and he passed away, way a few months ago. He was a legend. He had the 2255 habeas hearing. He granted the petition. After he granted the petition, five minutes later, she pleaded guilty to time served. So I lost that hearing. So it's possible. Second example is there's a famous case. It's a state case. It's Virginia Commonwealth of Virginia versus Justin Wolfe. He was sentenced to death for drug trafficking and allegedly hiring somebody to kill a customer. It went up through the system,

Starting point is 00:06:25 and the Virginia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court reversed the conviction. It's now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, habeas petition, and that's all I'm going to say about it, because I'm assisting in that case. But it's possible to win both a federal habeas petition and also a state habeas petition.

Starting point is 00:06:46 Yes. Okay, got it. Okay. So we're going to go through some of her, points, right? She says there's juror misconduct, the government misrepresented evidence. She brings up Epstein's non-prosecution agreement. You know, back in the day, the one that he signed to get him away from being charged federally, because she has always argued that she was covered under that, that she was granted immunity. Maybe we'll get to that. But we've got to start with this bombshell,

Starting point is 00:07:08 okay? So this is the language directly from the filing. I'm going to read specifically from certain parts about these co-conspirators, these secret agreements, okay? Like this. Quote, The secret settlements with the 25 men were hidden from the petitioner, meaning Galane Maxwell. That information would have changed the outcome of the trial, and petitioner would have certainly called the men as witnesses. The degree of contamination and collusion between witnesses combined with withholding of Brady material by the government, Brady material is evidence that helps the defendant, needs to be turned over, quote, that would call into question the credibility of every complainant that interfaced with plaintiff's lawyers, all of them would have changed the outcome of the trial.

Starting point is 00:07:49 And remember, there was always a lot of litigation with respect to Epstein and Maxwell that was in the background of the criminal case. So that argument that information was withheld from her and her team is very significant. And then you have this argument of selective prosecution, right, that she is being singled out, that other people could have been charged, but why is she the only one being charged like this? Is it an unfair prosecution? Quote, a defendant moving to dismiss for selective prosecution bears the heavy burden of establishing at least prima facie. that while others similarly situated have not generally been preceded or prosecuted against because of conduct of the type forming the basis of the charge against him, this person has been singled out for prosecution. That's one thing you have to show. And that the government has a discriminatory selection of the defendant for prosecution.

Starting point is 00:08:38 And so here, she says, quote, none of the four named co-conspirators or the 25 men with secret settlements were indicted. And then there's this, how former attorney. General Bill Barr, okay, quote, admitted that post Epstein's death, they were looking for someone to indict for trafficking. The petitioner was not named in Epstein's first or second indictment. Four other women were named as co-conspirators, but none of the four were ever charged. The government could have indicted the four named co-conspirators or any of the 25 men that settled secretly with the plaintiff's lawyers, but did not. And then in the context of saying how litigation was used against her in the criminal case, quote, the intervening years,

Starting point is 00:09:19 were used to exploit the civil litigation process to gain a tactical advantage, using plaintiff's lawyers in the front and behind the scenes to defame petitioner in pleadings working the media, promoting fake news, falsely portraying her and Epstein as one person, while working to invalidate, overturn the NPA, non-prosecution agreement, using the CVRA as litigated in points three and four above. Again, so the NPA is Epstein's non-prosecution agreement back in 2007 that he signed. She claims she was covered by. She claims the section about granting immunity to co-conspirators means her.

Starting point is 00:09:52 But the prosecution has always argued, and this was upheld by the court on appeal, that the only people bound by this are Florida prosecutors, not New York prosecutors. So they say her prosecution was legitimate. And the Supreme Court, as I mentioned, declined to hear her appeal. The CVRA, which I mentioned is the Crime Victims Rights Act, so it just establishes a bill of federal rights for a victim. But anyway, it goes on to say, quote, Edwards, who is Bradley Edwards represented a lot of Jeffrey Epstein accusers. Edwards used as the proxy for AUSA Villafana, both conspiring to overturn the MPA through the CVR litigation, obtaining police records and victims' names from law enforcement and USAO Florida AUSA Villafana sharing information with potential claimants, using the information for secret settlements with men with deep pockets in exchange for keeping the identity of those men out of the public arena to benefit the personal pocketbooks of plaintiff's lawyers.

Starting point is 00:10:45 And she says it's listed out, quote, 2016, the plaintiff's lawyers met to instigate an investigation into the petitioner. The plaintiff's lawyers representing the complainants had approached SDNY in 2016 in an effort to promote and instigate a criminal prosecution because the SDFL was not happy with the NPA and the plaintiff's lawyers wanted to assist the CVR case for financial motives. There were four employee co-conspirators that were not indicted but named in NPA and referenced in the Jeffrey Epstein indictment. New evidence reveals that there were 25 men with which the plaintiff's lawyers reached secret settlements that could equally be considered as co-conspirators.

Starting point is 00:11:23 None of these men have been prosecuted and none has been revealed to petitioner. She would have called them as witnesses had she known. Okay, Gene, a lot there, a lot there. But basically the argument is there were these secret settlements. There's other people that could have been indicted. She's the only one that was indicted. She didn't even know about these alleged secret settlements in the civil context, right? Because there was a lot of litigation regarding Jeffrey Epstein and Gleine Maxwell.

Starting point is 00:11:47 Your thoughts? There's a famous case called Kyle V. Whitley. It was decided April 19, 1995, the same day, ironically, is the Oklahoma City bombing. I remember that case very well. And what the Supreme Court said, it talked about the difference between Brady information and what they call Giglio information, GIGLIO. Brady information is information that raises a reasonable probability, not. beyond a reasonable doubt, not even beyond preponderance, a reasonable probability that had that

Starting point is 00:12:22 information been provided to the defendant, the outcome of the proceeding, the sentencing the verdict would have been different. What I hear from you, and what I hear from the reporting, is of those 25 or so settlements, there's a reasonable probability that had it been disclosed to Mix Maxwell's trial team, they could have investigated and gotten information as to what, why they were not charged, what benefits they got, and more important, whether it would help her argument of selective prosecution. And I would add this. It also could possibly, possibly help an argument for vindictive prosecution, where the prosecutors want to focus just on her, vindictant and selective are kind of like cousins, and they both are bad. They are hard to prove,

Starting point is 00:13:13 but this is evidence that could cause a reasonable probability that it could help her and cause a change in the verdict or the decision of the court to sentence her to 20 years. So all I can say is this. This is a hot mess. And if there's a hearing on her petition and there likely will be, you can guarantee that prosecutors may be called either in the Southern District or in Florida, U.S. Attorney's Office, Miami. The lead prosecutor in Miami, who I understand wrote a 50-page draft indictment before Epstein got his sweetheart deal at the state level. She may be called. The agents may be called. This is a hot, hot mess. I have to ask you, though, and we'll talk, I mean, you kind of mentioned this might be something

Starting point is 00:14:03 that could go to her favor. But I'm confused. We have heard from the government say before that there was no Jeffrey Epstein list, right, that there was no co-conspirators, collaborators, other people to charge. Is it possible she's telling the truth? Is it possible she's accurate? If you have people who entered into settlements, arguably they could have been brought up on criminal charges. I mean, unless I'm looking at this completely wrong. So is this something that the federal government, and I'll talk about what their latest filing too,

Starting point is 00:14:34 is this something the federal government didn't know about? Is it true? Maybe these people did enter into settlements, but they couldn't be brought up on a crime? Because I'm wondering. There's always a question of whether Maxwell's credible or not. So you tell me what's going on here. Jesse, I would be shocked if the prosecutors either in Florida or SDNY, New York, did not have some inkling, if not actual knowledge, that these settlements were happening. And it's not prohibited for criminal prosecutors to gather information from civil attorneys who are parallel working to get the same goal, all right?

Starting point is 00:15:13 They were trying to get a settlement of their clients, these 25 guys, if you will, and I can't believe that the federal prosecutors were clueless that those negotiations were happening and when they did happen. The key issue for me is the prosecutors have to argue that there was nothing in those settlements, nothing regarding the settlements of these 25 alleged defendants or alleged men. There was nothing in there that could possibly have helped her in her criminal case. Goes back to that test. There's nothing that would raise a reasonable probability that if she had this information,

Starting point is 00:15:54 the outcome, the guilty verdicts, would have been different. That's their argument. The government has to make that argument or they're going to lose. So people listening to this video, their main question is, okay, who are these? people. Are we ever going to be, are we ever going to have that publicized? Now, the reason I'm going to ask you that, this is what I have to say. So put it into context, we could also talk about whether Maxwell is credible. I mean, she met with Deputy A.G. Todd Blancho of the summer. She's set to be deposed by the House Oversight Committee February 9th, even though her attorneys

Starting point is 00:16:22 indicate she plans to plead the fifth, you know, invoke her right against self-incrimination. By the way, her attorney, David Marcus recently indicated that her testifying could jeopardize this habeas petition, which we're talking about. But this is what I want to ask you. whether or not this will ever become public, whether or not we would ever see who these 25 people are. Because let's not forget what's happening right now. Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It's forcing the DOJ to hand over everything in their possession related to Epstein. They had 30 days to do it.

Starting point is 00:16:50 They reportedly have only turned over maybe a small percentage of the files, or at least a small percentage have been made public. And this is interesting because the DOJ filed this, I think just the other day, with two judges from the Southern District of New York, federal court. And I'm going to read you a portion of the letter. Again, keep in mind whether or not these 25 men, whether or not these settlements, these unidentified individuals, will we ever know who they are? So it says this. The department respectfully submits this letter as an update to its previous submissions to the court regarding the review and redaction of certain of the materials required to be published pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The department continues to make substantial progress in its efforts to identify potentially responsive documents, review those documents, redact victim identifying information and privileged information. and engage in quality control processes and to prepare responsive documents for publication in accordance with the act. Indeed, the department has reviewed millions of pages of materials applying redactions as appropriate. The department continues to engage with victims and victims'

Starting point is 00:17:48 counsel and apply quality control checks. These efforts include not only manual review by hundreds of department attorneys, agents, and others conducting page-by-page review of millions of pages of documents, but also electronic searches for victims' names or other identifiers to isolate documents that are particularly sensitive and require supplemental review as well as relief from various protective orders issued in other courts. The department currently expects that it will complete this with respect to substantially all of the potentially responsive documents, including publication to the Epstein Library website, which is public, in the near term. The department is not able to provide a specific date at this time and cautions that this ongoing

Starting point is 00:18:26 work included its quality control and all this may require additional efforts to ensure the protection of victim identifying information. It says in addition, pursuant to the court's directive, including attorneys from the SDNY. They've taken an additional review to ensure that any production is consistent with both the letter and spirit of the court's protective order. So basically, Jean, they're saying we need more time. It's going to take a little bit, but near term. Again, from this, do you think these settlements are going to be made public? Are these individuals going to be identified if these settlements are true? If I had a bit money, I think the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and all those people

Starting point is 00:19:00 below them, plus the White House, because they're working together, they're not going to disclose the identities of those 25 or so persons who had settlements, civil settlements. They may provide a general summary, but not any details. I will defend the Department of Justice here. There's a ton of documents, and when they say hundreds of prosecutors are sifting through that, prosecutors and paralegals probably, I take them at their word because it is a lot of documents. I will say this. they're not going to be as transparent as the Attorney General suggested in February March when she said she had the list on my desk and she's going to disclose it. It's not going to be that transparent.

Starting point is 00:19:40 They're going to redact a ton of information. You're going to have a curfuffle with the committee's oversight committees on the hill. That's going to be a hot mess. I will say this. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court said that the states have to move with all deliberate haste and speed. okay that ended up being 12 to 15 years the near term what is the near turn is that this year is it next year is it 2030 i smile when i hear the phrase near term with no day um so i don't think we're going to get this anytime soon the disclosure of these individuals and if we do we get at best a very

Starting point is 00:20:21 rough summary of what's there but it goes back to what i said before if those settlements have that could help Glenn Maxwell in her 2255 petition, per habeas petition, which was filed, I think, December 17. If it does, then a judge is going to order the Department of Justice, even if the names are redacted, to just disclose the contents of those settlements, and any benefit, and this is the key, any benefit that the government gave those settled civil defendants in exchange for the civil settlements. That's important because it goes back to selective prosecution, possibly vindictive, and it could have provided evidence that could have helped her in her trial.

Starting point is 00:21:07 And I just want to be clear about something, even though there's been a lot of questions about her credibility and questions about, you know, the substance, the content of what she told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, whether she was trying to say anything to get some sort of deal or get a pardon of some kind, her potentially testifying in front of Congress, that committee. She, at the very least, is not going to say anything about these settlements or reveal who these people are. I mean, I don't even know if she knows the identities per se about who these people are, but we shouldn't expect that if she does testify, that she's going to spill the beans on this. Not going to spill the beans. I would add this, the famous case of Brady v. Maryland, it involved facts, not that the defendant was innocent. What the prosecutor willfully withheld in Brady v. Maryland, I think it was a 1950s case. the conduct was, what they withheld was information that mitigated the role that Mr. Brady had in a robbery. It mitigated the role. He didn't say I'm innocent. It's just that I was a small fish in a

Starting point is 00:22:10 big pond. These witnesses could be like Brady witnesses in Brady v. Maryland. They could say, you know what? Epstein was the key guy and her role was de minimis or was a lot less than Epstein. that's still Brady information that could help a jury render a verdict. Going back to Kyle's v. Whitley, April of 1995, what the court said is, if you have nine, she has nine issues. If you have nine issues that constitutional rights were violated, and she has nine, if each one individually doesn't result in a reasonable probability that the outcome could be different, If you combine the nine, or say you combine five or six of the nine, and you put it, I love food,

Starting point is 00:23:00 if you put it in a big salad bowl, that combined cumulative effect of those five to six violations, each one not by itself can do it. But if you combine them all, that can result in a new trial and a vacating of the conviction. That was a very important part of Kyle V. Whitley. They call it a cumulative test. Okay, so you tell me, out of the nine points, Are there any ones in particular individual? I'll tell you one that I kind of like.

Starting point is 00:23:27 Okay. Juror number 50 has a lot to answer for. Well, explain it. Explain it. So there's apparently- During voir juries, selection, either verbally and or in writing, jurors are asked questions.

Starting point is 00:23:40 Either by the judge and or the attorneys. Depends on the court. Those answers to those questions are under oath, subject to the pains and penalties of perjury. According to her allegations, and I just read them, juror number 50 has a lot of inconsistencies and her answers. And it appears to me that the trial judge was a little lenient on those inconsistencies. Glenn Maxwell's arguing that those aren't just innocent mistakes.

Starting point is 00:24:11 Those are willful and intentional, pejorious conduct and answers. And the issue was this juror 50 was a guy, he had been subjected to, sexual abuse back in the day, and there was a specific question, have you ever been subjected to sexual abuse? One, and have you discussed this with anybody recently? Well, yes, he did get subject to sexual abuse. And two, according to Maxwell's filing, he was discussing it with reporters. So, juror number 50 by itself could raise an issue. And why? It's like you have a bank robbery case. And juror gives a false answer about whether they were a teller in a bank at which the defendant pointed a gun. And it wasn't that case, but it was one before. If you allow that teller, former teller in a

Starting point is 00:25:04 bank who was subject to robbery in another matter on a jury, there is no way that defendant's going to get an acquittal. Yeah. That's the argument Maxwell's making. This juror poisoned the jury cool. So I will agree with you with the habeas petition different from an appeal, right? If you have new information that's come out there, you've only recently learned, this is very important. There are some arguments that she's repeating from her appeal. And I mean, just to end this up with the biggest one, the non-prosecution agreement. This is something that she's argued before, right, the non-prosecution agreement that Epstein entered into in 2007. There's a section that extends immunity to, quote, any potential co-conspirators. She's made the argument. That covers me. But courts time and again have said,

Starting point is 00:25:46 no, that only bound the Florida prosecutors, not New York prosecutors. The Supreme Court didn't even take that up. Is this even relevant for her habeas petition? Would this even have grounds? Is this strong enough? I would say that what she's brought up in her habeas petition does not affect dramatically, if at all, the argument that this non-prosecution agreement applies to Southern District of New York. It's rehashing old arguments. Yes, it's black letter law. It's in writing into letters. Whenever a government has a non-prosecution agreement, let's say in Miami U.S. Attorney, it only applies to that U.S. Attorney's office. It doesn't apply to the other 93 U.S. Attorney offices. That's Black Letter. You can be charged with drug trafficking in EDVA,

Starting point is 00:26:33 and Michigan U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit could charge money laundering based on the same facts, because there's separate sovereigns, if you will, each U.S. Attorney's Office when it comes to non-prosecution agreements or letter immunity. Okay, well, I'll tell you what. Let's see how the shakes up. Right now she is potentially going to testify in front of Congress, but she's sitting at FPC Bryan. It's a minimum security federal prison in Texas. She was moved there, by the way, after her meeting with Todd Blanche. But let's see what happens. Gene Rossi, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. That's a pleasure. And that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us.

Starting point is 00:27:12 always please subscribe on youtube apple podcast spotify wherever you should get your podcast we're also up on nbc's peacock as well you can get some sidebar episodes there if you want to follow me x instagram also you can check out my news nation show jesse weber live monday friday 11 p m eastern see you next time everybody

Law&Crime Sidebar - 25 Epstein Insiders Cut Secret Deals: Ghislaine Maxwell Bombshell Court Filing

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