Ghislaine Maxwell trial set for November

A US judge will seek to start Ghislaine Maxwell's trial on charges she procured teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse on November 29, rejecting the British socialite's request to begin three weeks earlier.

US District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan said on Tuesday the later date served the interests of justice because it would let Maxwell's four prosecutors continue without scheduling disruptions.

The prosecutors had argued the complex case made letting them see it through to trial "a particularly compelling interest".

Nathan said she would seek to conduct jury selection during the week of November 15.

One of Maxwell's lawyers, Bobbi Sternheim, had written that the November 29 date, which is the first Monday after the Thanksgiving Day holiday, would have a "severe and irreparable impact on Maxwell's defence".

She said it would keep Maxwell in jail longer, could disrupt jurors' travel plans, and could "cast defence counsel and the defence case in a negative light as jurors impatiently wait for the trial to conclude before Christmas, which it won't".

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and other charges in an eight-count indictment over her alleged role in procuring four teenage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.

The 59-year-old has been jailed in Brooklyn since her arrest last July.

Epstein, a financier, killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.