Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers allege her husband and brother are refusing to pay legal fees

Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers are suing her, her brother and husband, alleging it was never paid for more than 878,000 dollars (£744,000) of its work.

In December, 2021, former socialite Maxwell was convicted of five out of six charges she was facing in relation to the sex trafficking of teenage girls.

Maxwell pleaded not guilty to all charges, but four women came forward and gave evidence and the 12 jurors found Maxwell - a former girlfriend of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein - guilty of five out of six counts, including the sex trafficking of minors.

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In January 2022, Maxwell filed for a retrial, arguing a juror's own experience of sexual abuse had swayed the trial.

However, the socialite's attempts were shut down.

She has since remained in prison - having been sentenced to 20 years.

Denver-based Haddon, Morgan and Foreman alleged in a lawsuit filed on Monday that Maxwell put her brother Kevin Maxwell in charge of paying her legal fees after she was arrested in 2020 but that he only paid a fraction of what they had charged leading up to and during her trial.

Kevin Maxwell urged the firm to keep working on appeal issues after she was convicted despite the unpaid bills and had blamed Maxwell’s husband, Scott Borgerson, for getting in the way of making payments, according to the lawsuit filed in Denver.

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By January 2021, the amount owed to the law firm by Maxwell is stated in the lawsuit as reaching $141,160 after the retainer ran out in November.

Kevin Maxwell is said to have paid $143,500 to the law firm, but a total sum of $878,302 is still owed to the firm's two lawyers - Laura Menninger and Jeffrey Pagliuca who represented Maxwell.

It states: "Mr Maxwell breached the agreement by failing to pay for services and advanced costs on behalf of Ms Maxwell."

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Borgerson and the former socialite broke up while she was embroiled in the sex trafficking case and imprisoned in New York, awaiting trial.

Earlier this year, Maxwell's lawyers even confirmed the pair had split in a sentencing submission.

The lawsuit stated it's worried about Maxwell's 'willingness and ability to meet her financial obligations'.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact The Survivor’s Trust for free on 08088 010 818, or through their website thesurvivorstrust.org

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 8am–10pm Monday to Friday, 9am–6pm weekends. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111

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