Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell seeks sentence reduction from Trump: Report

ISTANBUL

Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted accomplice of late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has reportedly requested that US President Donald Trump reduce her 20-year prison sentence, NBC News reported Monday.

This information was conveyed to House Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee by an unnamed whistleblower, who also claimed Maxwell gets "concierge-style" treatment in prison.

Maxwell sent an email to her lawyer, which was reviewed by the news outlet, that carried the subject line "commutation application," using a term meaning the lessening of a penalty.

In the minimum security prison she was moved to this summer, the Epstein associate gets special meals, has out-of-hours access to the exercise area, and is allowed to play with a puppy being trained as a guide dog, according to the whistleblower. She was moved to the prison soon after sitting down for an interview with Todd Blanche, a deputy US attorney general who also served as a lawyer for Trump in between his first and second terms.

Jamie Raskin, ranking Democratic member of the US House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Trump on Monday demanding the administration provide information about the application and urged the president to reject the request.

The congressman also said the administration should not be providing her with special treatment or any "institutional privilege at all."

Raskin says she was moved to the minimum security prison in violation of rules barring sex offenders from being transferred to such facilities.

Maxwell's lawyer did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment, nor did he publicly comment on the matter.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on charges related to procuring girls, some as young as 14 years old, for Epstein. The US Supreme Court in October rejected Maxwell's bid to dismiss her conviction on charges related to grooming young girls for Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was found dead in his jail cell in New York City in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Trump said in October that he would have to speak to the Justice Department about a pardon for Maxwell.

"I'll take a look at it. I'll speak to the DOJ. I wouldn't consider it or not consider it ... I don't know anything about it, so, but I'll speak to the DOJ," he told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to the Department of Justice. He did not mention her status as a convicted sex offender.

Earlier this year, many of Trump’s MAGA followers criticized his refusal to release all the files on Epstein and his calling the case a “hoax.”