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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document657_ Filed 04/29/22 Page 43 of 45
And third, the Defendant does not demonstrate that such witnesses, even if available to
testify as the Defendant speculates they may have, would have meaningfully altered her defense
such that she was substantially prejudiced by their absence. Pierre-Louis, 2018 WL 4043140, at
*4. No witness listed could testify directly to whether or not the Defendant and Epstein sexually
abused the victims. Rather, each would at best provide additional corroboration of the
Defendant’s arguments at trial to impeach the witnesses’ credibility as to particular aspects of
their testimony. This falls short of substantial prejudice. United States v. Lawson, 683 F.2d 688,
694 (2d Cir. 1982) (no prejudice where absent witness’s testimony was “at best corroborative on
minor points’’).
Specifically, the housekeeper’s anticipated testimony that the Defendant rarely spent the
night at Epstein’s townhouse and that she and Epstein were not “always” together contradicts
little, if any, of the Government’s case at trial. Maxwell Br. at 30. The Defendant does not
claim that the housekeeper was always aware of the Defendant’s or Epstein’s actions, and so is
unlikely to have rebutted testimony that at other times and other locations, the Defendant and
Epstein committed crimes. See Pierre-Louis, 2018 WL 4043140, at *4 (absence of a witness not
prejudicial because unless the witness was with the defendant “every moment,” it would have
been “impossible for him to testify that defendant did not commit the charged crimes”).
The speculated testimony of Sally Markham—that an individual known only as “the
Countess,” not the Defendant, wrote the household manual—is similarly unhelpful to the
Defendant’s claim. In considering whether testimony would have been beneficial to the
Defendant, the Court must consider whether the witness would have been credible and withstood
cross-examination. See Maxwell, 534 F. Supp. 3d at 317 (citing United States v. Spears, 159
F.3d 1081, 1085 (7th Cir. 1999)). The Defendant provides no basis to conclude that the jury
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Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00010409.jpg |
| File Size | 728.0 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.4% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,132 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 17:58:34.179903 |