Ghislaine Maxwell to face Manhattan federal court trial

Ghislaine Maxwell stands accused of helping Jeffrey Epstein but claims she’s as much a victim as the abused women. Here’s what she will argue.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell together in 2005. Picture: Getty Images

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell once lived a lavish lifestyle of mansions, luxury holidays, private jets, and exclusive parties with some of the world’s most rich and powerful people.

But that all came crashing down 17 months ago when she was arrested on historic sex trafficking charges and thrown into a grubby Brooklyn jail cell she calls a “living hell”.

Police claim the 59-year-old procured girls as young as 14 for her late ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s and early 2000s.

She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Whether the French-born, Oxford-educated daughter of the late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell returns to her once privileged existence or is condemned to prison for a maximum 80 years will soon be decided in a Manhattan federal court.

Opening arguments in her high profile trial are due to begin on November 29, before a jury of 12, drawn from a wide area in and around New York City.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attending de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising on March 15, 2005 in New York City. Picture: Getty Images

Prosecutors allege Maxwell befriended and helped “normalise” the abuse by “discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein”.

Maxwell – who federal prosecutors allege served as Epstein’s madam – contends that she has been unfairly substituted for the late financier after he died by suicide in a New York jail while awaiting trial for underage sex trafficking.

“I have not committed any crime,” Maxwell said at a recent pre-trial conference.

Two weeks after Epstein’s death, 16 women told a court how he had subjected them to sexual abuse when they were teenagers. Several of them named Maxwell as having played a key role in the alleged predation and subsequent abuse at Epstein’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida, his Manhattan townhouse and at other residences in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and London.

At least four of those women, including American psychologist Annie Farmer – who has publicly identified herself as one of the alleged victims – will testify against Maxwell at her trial. The other three women will testify under pseudonyms.

Ghislaine Maxwell with her defence team during a pre-trial hearing ahead of jury selection, in a courtroom sketch in New York City on November 15, 2021. Picture: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg

Ghislaine Maxwell led into court in shackles for a pre-trial hearing ahead of jury selection in a courtroom sketch in New York City on November 1. Picture: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg

Ms Farmer previously alleged that Maxwell and Epstein sexually abused her at his New Mexico mansion in 1996 when she was 16 years old. She described Maxwell as a “sexual predator” who had “never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes”.

Other accusers, including Australian Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, who claims she was recruited by Maxwell and trafficked to Prince Andrew to “engage in sex acts against her will” when she was 17 years old, could also be put forward to testify against Maxwell.

The Duke of York, who was forced to step down from British royal duties over his connection to Epstein, vehemently denies the allegations against him. In a 2016 deposition, Maxwell dismissed Ms Giuffre’s claims as a “tissue of lies”.

The proceedings could bring to light previously undisclosed names of high-profile people accused of enabling Epstein in his decades-long sexual abuse of minors.

The Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City where Ghislaine Maxwell is being held. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

However, the judge has made it clear that Maxwell’s trial will be focused on the sex trafficking charges against her and will not extend beyond the scope of that.

It’s unlikely Maxwell will take the witness stand at her own trial but the defence has indicated it will portray her as a victim of Epstein’s malevolent and controlling character.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a brilliant man who was flawed by enduring personality traits familiar to psychiatrists,” a letter submitted to the court by Maxwell’s lawyers read.

“Like many people who achieve great power and wealth, Jeffrey Epstein exploited the ‘Halo effect’ to surround himself with people who would serve his needs.”

The filing suggested that Epstein used “his brilliance to manipulate people to do his bidding and to compartmentalise people into isolated cells in which none had complete information about his activities”.

At a hearing last year where Maxwell was denied bail, some Epstein accusers made it clear they believed she was equally culpable.

Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts Giuffre at Ghislaine Maxwell's townhouse in London, Britain on March 13 200. Picture: Florida Southern District Court/Supplied

One referred to Maxwell as “a sexual predator who groomed and abused me and countless other children and young women”.

In a statement read aloud by a prosecutor, another said, “Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did”.

“The question at trial will be whether the defendant took steps to provide Jeffrey Epstein with access to girls under the age of 18, knowing that Epstein intended to have sexual contact with those girls,” prosecutors wrote in a pre-trial filing.

Maxwell, who was once a fixture in New York’s social scene, continued working for Epstein after the pair split up, managing his homes in Manhattan, Paris, Palm Beach, a ranch in New Mexico and a private Caribbean island. Together, they lived a jetsetting, high-net-worth life. They mixed with the likes of former US Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as Bill Gates.

Their alleged victims shared several things in common, including that they were young, vulnerable and cash-strapped females.

The property where Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Bradford, New Hampshire, US. Picture: Reuters/Drone Base

Maxwell’s lawyers have proposed to call psychologist Elizabeth Loftus to testify about research “showing that false memories can be described with confidence, detail and emotion, just like true memories,” even though a witness may not be “deliberately lying.”

Ms Loftus has testified in more than 300 trials, including those for high-profile defendants including Harvey Weinstein, Ted Bundy and OJ Simpson.

Maxwell’s legal team will also question the witnesses’ credibility based on alleged substance abuse or failure to disclose their accusations promptly, according to court filings.

The prosecution has indicated an intention to counter by presenting Lisa Rocchio, a psychologist and sexual abuse specialist, who will testify that teenagers are particularly likely to disclose sexual abuse later in life and that false allegations represent a “very small minority” of accusations.

Ghislaine Maxwell, with a black eye, pictured for the first time since her 2020 arrest in a photo included in court documents. Picture: Bobbi Sternheim

Epstein, who died aged 66, was arrested on multiple sex-trafficking charges in July 2019.

His lawyers contended the charges violated a 2008 non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in Miami that secretly ended a federal sex abuse probe involving at least 40 teenage girls.

After pleading guilty to state charges in Florida instead, he spent 13 months in jail and paid settlements to victims. But the New York case took an unexpected turn when Epstein was found dead in his jail cell one month after his arrest, in August 2019.

Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 at a private estate in New Hampshire. She has been jailed in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) ever since, having had multiple applications for bail rejected. The judge deemed her a “flight risk”.

Ghislaine Maxwell living it up in previous years.

She has repeatedly complained about the conditions inside the jail with her lawyers claiming she is under such invasive surveillance from guards that it “rivals scenes of Dr Hannibal Lecter’s incarceration” in the film The Silence of the Lambs.

In June, she was forced to change cells after raw sewage permeated the one she was being held in and “vermin droppings fell from air vents”.

Maxwell last week told the Mail on Sunday that she has been assaulted and abused by prison guards, and forced to sleep under “fluorescent lights”.

In a recent letter to judge Alison J. Nathan, defence lawyer Bobbi Sternheim said her client “is eager for her day in court.”

Maxwell “looks forward to her trial and to walking out of the courthouse uncuffed and unshackled following her acquittal,” the lawyer wrote.

The trial, which promises to shed light on Epstein’s world and Maxwell’s role within it,

is expected to run for up to six weeks.