Mega Edition: Jeffrey Epstein And His Fugazi Science Foundation (9/30/26)

Judge Alison Nathan responded sharply after one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s appellate lawyers, David Markus, published a June 2021 New York Daily News op-ed arguing that Maxwell should benefit from the same kind of prosecutorial-agreement reasoning that had just led to Bill Cosby’s release. Markus described the case against Maxwell as extremely weak, argued that Jeffrey Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement should protect her and suggested that a jury should reject the charges. Federal prosecutors complained that the column violated Southern District of New York rules restricting lawyers from making public statements that could prejudice a pending criminal trial. Nathan ordered Maxwell’s defense team, including Markus, to respond and ultimately made clear that lawyers connected to the case could not use the media as an unrestricted venue for arguing the merits of a case that was still headed for trial.

Nathan stopped short of disciplining Markus for the op-ed itself, noting there had been some uncertainty over whether the local rule technically applied to him because he was handling appellate matters rather than appearing as Maxwell’s trial counsel. But she removed any uncertainty going forward. Nathan ordered Markus to comply with Local Criminal Rule 23.1 and emphasized that public statements expressing opinions about a defendant’s guilt or innocence, the strength of the evidence or the merits of a pending case could create a substantial risk of interfering with a fair trial. The message from the court was straightforward: whatever ambiguity may have existed before the op-ed was now gone, and Markus, along with other attorneys associated with the Maxwell case, was formally on notice that their public commentary would be governed by the court’s restrictions.


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