FILE PHOTO: Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell attends her sentencing hearing in a courtroom sketch in New York City, U.S. June 28, 2022. Maxwell was convicted on December 29, 2021 on five of the six counts she faced for helping the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
NEW YORK 鈥� Ghislaine Maxwell has failed to pay some $878,000 in fees to two lawyers who defended the now-convicted British socialite against criminal charges she helped Jeffrey Epstein abuse teenage girls, the lawyers鈥� firm said in a new lawsuit.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December of sex trafficking and is serving a 20-year prison sentence over her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein, a financier and registered sex offender who had been known for socializing with elite U.S. politicians and businessmen.
In a lawsuit filed on Monday in a Colorado state court in Denver, the law firm Haddon, Morgan and Foreman said Maxwell鈥檚 brother Kevin promised before trial to pay a $1 million retainer but paid just $143,500, 鈥渁 small fraction of the amount owed.鈥�
Two of the firm鈥檚 lawyers, Laura Menninger and Jeffrey Pagliuca, represented Ghislaine Maxwell throughout the case.
Other defendants include Kevin Maxwell and Scott Borgerson, described in the lawsuit as Ghislaine Maxwell鈥檚 husband. The lawsuit said Kevin Maxwell told the Haddon firm that Borgerson controlled Maxwell鈥檚 money.
聽Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell listens to her sentencing from Judge Alison Nathan in a courtroom sketch in New York City, U.S. June 28, 2022. Maxwell was convicted on December 29, 2021 on five of the six counts she faced for helping the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Neither Menninger nor Pagliuca immediately responded to requests for comment. Two of Maxwell鈥檚 other lawyers, Bobbi Sternheim and Christian Everdell, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kevin Maxwell and Borgerson could not immediately be reached for comment. Another brother, Ian Maxwell, told the Associated Press that the Maxwell family would not comment.
Ghislaine Maxwell and her husband have separated, Maxwell鈥檚 lawyers wrote in a sentencing submission earlier this year.
Maxwell, the daughter of late British press baron Robert Maxwell, is serving her sentence in a Tallahassee, Florida, prison, and is appealing her conviction. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on his own sex trafficking charges.
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