Maxwell and her legal team’s 2023 request to a U.S. appeals court to overturn her sex trafficking conviction was not the first time Maxwell raised alarm over the alleged poor conditions she experienced while in custody, awaiting her trial. In 2021, Reuters reported that Maxwell and her lawyer said she was exposed to raw sewage at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, as well as sleep, water, food deprivation, excessive surveillance, and harassment, according to Maxwell and her attorneys.
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Around that same time, Maxwell’s lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, wrote (via Reuters) the conditions in Brooklyn were “reprehensible and utterly inappropriate for [a] woman on the cusp of turning 60 with no criminal record or history of violence. The surveillance rivals scenes of Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s incarceration despite the absence of the cage and plastic face guard,” she added, referring to the villain from “The Silence of the Lambs” book and movie franchise. The next year, Maxwell was sued by the legal firm representing her for close to a million dollars in unpaid legal fees, CNN writes.
