Who is Alison J Nathan? Manhattan judge will preside over Ghislaine Maxwell trial
As the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell begins on November 29, 2021, some questions may finally be answered about the sex scandal involving late Jeffery Epstein. Maxwell was arrested on July 2, 2020, and is one of the few remaining links investigators have to Epstein after he died suspiciously while he was in jail. The trial is likely to finally tell us how far, wide and deeply Epstein's sex trafficking ring had spread, especially in the elite circles he ran in. It will also hopefully bring justice to the victims.
Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite, and Epstein’s former girlfriend, is accused of having been part of a sex trafficking racket run by convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein. She was arrested in July 2020 while she was hiding in New Hampshire. Maxwell, who was in a relationship with Epstein during the 90s, is accused of helping the billionaire sexually exploit young girls, many of them underage.
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The judge in Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial — Alison Julie Nathan — may now be moving up to a federal appeals court. Nathan will be recommended for an appointment to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. How the new role will affect Maxwell's trial is unclear. “Ali Nathan is an outstanding judge for the Southern District of New York and her experience, legal brilliance, love of the rule of law and perspective would be invaluable in ensuring the federal judiciary fulfills its obligation to ensure equal justice for all,” Senator Chuck Schumer recently stated. Schumer had recommended Nathan for her current job in New York City back in 2011, as a judge in the Southern District of New York.
Who is judge Alison J Nathan?
Alison J. Nathan is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Nathan has served as a law clerk for US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judge Betty Binns Fletcher from 2000 to 2001. From 2001 until 2002, she served as a law clerk for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court. After this, Nathan served as an associate in the New York and Washington, D.C. offices of the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr from 2002 until 2006.
Besides these achievements in her career, Nathan also served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and also as his Associate White House Counsel from 2009 until 2010. She was a guest judge for the Harvard Law School Ames Moot Court Competition in 2016. Nathan, raised in northwest suburban Philadelphia by parents who were both university graduates, presided over the bail hearings for Ghislaine Maxwell in July and December 2020.
In March 2021, two new US federal charges were filed against Maxwell — of being part of a sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor. Before these two charges were added to the indictment, Maxwell was already facing six more — conspiracy to entice minors, and enticement of a minor, to travel to engage in illegal sex acts; conspiracy to transport minors, and transportation of a minor, with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and two of perjury. So far, she has denied all of these charges.