Ghislaine Maxwell on Monday refused to answer questions from a U.S. House committee, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as lawmakers seek more details about Jeffrey Epstein’s long-running sexual abuse network.
Maxwell was to be questioned during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she's serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She's come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years.
Amid a reckoning over Epstein's abuse that has spilled into nations around the globe, lawmakers are searching for anyone who was connected to Epstein and may have facilitated his abuse. Several also planned on Monday to look through unredacted versions of the files on Epstein that the Department of Justice released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year.
Maxwell has been seeking to have her conviction overturned, arguing that she was wrongfully convicted. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year, but in December requested that a federal judge in New York consider what her attorneys describe as "substantial new evidence" that her trial was spoiled by constitutional violations.
