⁍ Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to charges she helped Epstein recruit and groom underage girls.

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⁍ She has said bad publicity from disclosing her deposition would violate her right against self-incrimination.

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⁍ Her 418-page deposition came from a long-settled defamation lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre.

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– “When did you stop beating your wife?” That was one of the questions posed to British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in an April 2016 deposition as part of a defamation lawsuit brought against her by Virginia Giuffre, who says Epstein kept her as a “sex slave” with help from Maxwell. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in New York heard arguments from both sides over whether to unseal the deposition, which Maxwell’s lawyer says could “blur the lines” between the criminal and civil cases, Reuters reports. Maxwell, 58, is accused of helping financier Jeffrey Epstein recruit and groom underage girls for sex. She has pleaded not guilty to charges she helped Epstein recruit and groom girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sexual acts in the mid-1990s. Epstein, a registered sex offender, killed himself in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell’s lawyer, Adam Mueller, told the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that releasing the deposition, which was taken in a separate civil case, threatened to undermine her trial. “We’re concerned about preserving the status quo,” Mueller told a three-judge panel in a nearly 2-1/2-hour hearing. “There’s going to be a public criminal trial, and this will all be aired in open court … We think that vindicates the public interest.” Mueller said the deposition was filled with questions akin to “when did you stop beating your wife” and that Maxwell’s denials could be as “revealing” as well as her admissions. Circuit Judge Rosemary Pooler asked if there was a “substantial presumption of public interest. “Sure she cares about the fact that there is.”