NEW YORK—A woman who said she was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking urged a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday to unseal a deposition by Ghislaine Maxwell that the British socialite, who faces criminal charges she aided Epstein’s abuses, has fought to keep out of the public eye.
Lawyers for Virginia Giuffre made the request in a filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Sept. 22.
“Maxwell did not meet her burden in the District Court as to why any of the contested materials should remain under seal despite the public’s presumption of access,” Giuffre’s lawyers Sigrid McCawley and David Boies said in the filing.
Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Maxwell has said the April 2016 deposition, taken as part of Giuffre’s now-settled defamation lawsuit against her, contained “intimate, sensitive, and personal information” whose disclosure would cause irreversible, negative publicity.
She has said this would undermine her constitutional rights to remain silent and obtain a fair trial by an impartial jury, outweighing any presumption of public access.
Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997 and to committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath. Her trial is scheduled for next July.
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