Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche will meet with Ghislaine Maxwell today, sources say
Pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and convicted sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell is set to meet with a top Trump lawyer.
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A top Justice Department official is meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell today in Florida, where the convicted sex trafficker is serving out a 20-year-sentence for supplying young girls to Jeffrey Epstein, sources familiar with the matter told The Post.
Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche — Department of Justice’s second-in-command and formerly President Trump’s defence lawyer — is huddling with the disgraced British socialite and her lawyer at the US Attorney’s Office in Tallahassee, the sources said.
Maxwell is serving a two-decade-long sentence in the Sunshine State after a Manhattan jury convicted her of grooming young girls by serving as Epstein’s right-hand-woman, helping him lure young women into his twisted sexual web.
But amid a renewed outcry for more information on Epstein, Blanche said earlier this week that he’d be meeting with Maxwell to see if she would be willing to reveal more to federal prosecutors about the late sex offender.
It’s unclear what Maxwell and Blanche are discussing — or whether anything the convicted predator says would be considered credible.
The DOJ in 2022 expressed doubts that Maxwell could be truthful, accusing her in court papers of a “significant pattern of dishonest conduct” and failing to take responsibility for her heinous crimes.
It comes as Ghislaine Maxwell is assembling “new evidence” to present to the feds when she meets with them this week, her brother told The Post.
Jeffrey Epstein’s madame never gave her version of events to federal prosecutors before her 2021 trial, which resulted in a 20-year sentence for recruiting women and underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse. She also never testified in her own defence.
“She will be putting before that court material new evidence that was not available to the defence at her 2021 trial, which would have had a significant impact on its outcome,” Ian Maxwell told The Post in an email Wednesday.
Maxwell, 63, is the linchpin in the Epstein affair and one of the few people still alive who knows the names, times, dates and places of his entanglements — both in business and private. Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial in 2019.
“If she squeals on some of the people that she has videos on they won’t be happy, ” former Epstein sex slave Virginia Giuffre alleged in an interview with Gayle King on CBS News in 2020.
Giuffre, who took her own life in April, became one of the most prominent accusers of Ghislaine and Epstein after she had been recruited by the pair and worked for them until 2002, during which time she claimed to have slept with high profile men including Britain’s Prince Andrew and “a president with a Spanish accent,” according to court papers.
“[Ghislaine] was vicious. She was evil. Put it this way, Epstein was Pinocchio and she was Geppetto. She was the guy controlling the strings.”
Maxwell – currently serving her sentence at FCI Tallahassee in Florida – also knows a great deal about Epstein’s holdings, according to court proceedings.
Cimberly Espinosa, who worked as a secretary for Maxwell in the early aughts, called Maxwell Epstein’s “estate manager,” working on his various projects, including his private island in the Virgin Islands.
At one point, Maxwell oversaw the shipping of sand and palm trees to the island, said Espinosa, who was a defence witness at Maxwell’s 2021 trial and also testified she never saw her do anything untoward or illegal.
Giuffre told an interviewer Maxwell organised the soirees and trips for the high-profile financiers and politicians who flew on Epstein’s private plane and went to his parties.
“She was the booking agent,” alleged Spencer Kuvin, a Florida lawyer who represented some of the first victims of Epstein to come forward in 2007. “Ghislaine would co-ordinate to get the girls for Jeffrey and his friends, and she would also make sure that his homes around the world were ready to receive him. She knows all the johns and she knows all of the victims, because she did all the dirty work.”
Maxwell herself has always been reluctant to speak publicly and given few interviews. During a 2016 deposition in a civil case for defamation brought by Giuffre, lawyers criticised her for playing dumb — when asked about sex toys, she responded “I need you to define a sex toy.”
She also denied Prince Andrew had ever met Giuffre, despite appearing next to them in a well-circulated photo.
Teresa Helm, a victim of Epstein, said she feels prosecutors will have a tough time getting the truth from her.
“She was crafty, successful and very articulate, and I think she’s just going to make a deal to get released,” she said.
Helm, who works as the survivor services co-ordinator for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation in Washington DC was recruited by Maxwell in 2002.
She said she was recruited by Ghislaine, who didn’t mention Epstein during their interview, then flew from Los Angeles to New York City. She says she was assaulted by Epstein upon arrival at his Upper East Side mansion, causing her to leave right away and return to Los Angeles.
“I can’t imagine that we are going to have to deal with another sweetheart deal that results in Ghislaine Maxwell getting released from prison,” she said. “That would be tragic for all the women who survived.”
Helm is referring to the slap-on-the-wrist plea bargain Epstein’s lawyers negotiated in 2007, which saw him plead guilty to two felony prostitution-related charges, register as a sex offender and serve 13 months in jail.
The deal came despite a Palm Beach police investigation providing evidence he had sexually assaulted numerous girls as young as 14.
Epstein did minimum time under lock and key and was even allowed to be privately guarded at his Miami home during the daytime, and was free to travel internationally after completing his sentence.
Maxwell, on the other hand, was handed 20 years in prison. She has insisted throughout that she was railroaded. Her lawyers have consistently argued she should have been covered by a non-prosecution agreement Epstein negotiated in 2007.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida shot down the Trump administration’s bid to release a trove of grand jury transcripts from 2005 and 2007 connected to Epstein’s case in the state.
Maxwell is set to meet with Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche imminently and also tentatively scheduled to sit for a deposition August 11 to give further evidence.
This story was originally published in The New York Post.
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