Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial was originally scheduled to begin on July 12, 2021, but that timetable changed after federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment on March 29 that added new sex-trafficking charges and expanded the alleged conspiracy through 2004. Maxwell’s lawyers argued that the late addition dramatically increased the amount of evidence they had to review and changed the scope of the case only a few months before trial. They accused prosecutors of unfairly expanding the prosecution at the last minute and asked Judge Alison Nathan to postpone the proceedings until at least November, and potentially into 2022. Nathan agreed that some delay was justified, noting both the new charges and the complications created by COVID-era restrictions on trial preparation, but she made clear that she did not want the case pushed back any longer than necessary. On May 3, 2021, she formally adjourned the July trial date and ordered the parties to propose the earliest realistic alternative.
The court ultimately set November 29, 2021, as the new trial date, with jury selection scheduled to begin earlier that month. Nathan found that the additional time was necessary to allow Maxwell’s defense to review discovery connected to the superseding indictment, prepare motions, examine pretrial disclosures and otherwise get ready for trial. The delay therefore was not the result of the case collapsing or prosecutors backing away; it was a direct consequence of the government expanding the indictment relatively late in the process and the defense insisting that it needed more time to respond. Maxwell remained jailed throughout the postponement, and her lawyers continued arguing that the conditions of her confinement made trial preparation more difficult. By the time opening statements began on November 29, the case that went before the jury was broader than the one Maxwell had originally expected to face in July, with the new sex-trafficking count becoming one of the central charges against her.
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