NEW YORK (AP) — A British socialite charged with recruiting girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s asks a judge to dismiss the case on multiple grounds.
Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell say the indictment against their client was obtained unjustly and didn't correctly allege crimes.
They said it also violates an agreement federal prosecutors made a dozen years ago not to charge Epstein or those who worked for him.
Maxwell was arrested in July and has remained jailed because she might flee.
According to The Associated Press, Maxwell pleaded not guilty to charges that she recruited three teenage girls, including a 14-year-old, for Epstein to abuse from 1994 to 1997 sexually.
Federal prosecutors declined through a spokesperson to comment though they will later file arguments of their own in response.
A trial is scheduled for July.
Last month, Maxwell asked the judge to free her while she awaited trial by offering a $28.5 million bail package that included armed guards to keep her in a New York City residence.
The judge rejected the bail bid a few days later.
According to The AP, if Maxwell's lawyers can't get the charges against her dismissed, they filed motions seeking her indictment be thrown out "because it was obtained from a grand jury seated outside New York City in White Plains."
The lawyers noted that "Black and Hispanic grand jurors would have been underrepresented," The AP reported.
Maxwell's lawyers also stated federal prosecutors used COVID-19 as an excuse "to seat the grand jury outside of New York City when the pandemic was killing thousands of city residents," according to The AP.
Epstein killed himself in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.