A US judge said Maxwell’s bid to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence on the grounds that there was “substantial new evidence” was “demonstrably meritless”.

Maxwell’s petition for a new trial was “meritless” and often “frivolous,” the judge wrote, and the evidence she provided only “incriminates her” further.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer says claims by longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein of new evidence in sex trafficking conviction are 'demonstrably meritless'