Ghislaine Maxwell trial: Jeffrey Epstein’s pilot says Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew flew on paedophile’s private jet
Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer has quizzed Jeffrey Epstein’s pilot about the high-profile names he flew on the paedophile’s plane. Warning: Graphic
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Donald Trump, Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton all flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, the paedophile’s former pilot told the Ghislaine Maxwell trial.
Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr told the New York court that former US presidents Clinton and Trump and the Queen’s second son all flew on the jet – including other celebrities such as Hollywood stars Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker, violinist Itzhak Perlman, and US Senators John Glenn and George Mitchell.
The pilot flew around 1000 flights for the paedophile from the early 1990s to 2004, the jury in Maxwell’s child sex-trafficking trial heard.
Mr Visoski told the court under cross examination that he never witnessed sex acts aboard several private aircraft that he piloted for the convicted sex trafficker.
“I never saw any sexual activity, no,” he said.
However, Mr Visoski said the cockpit door was always closed during flights, making it impossible to see what was going on in the passenger area.
He also testified that he never noticed any underage girls without their parents on any of those flights.
That included both Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre from Australia and a victim identified as “Jane” at the trial.
Mr Visoski said he flew Roberts Giuffre in the mid to late 90s, but believed her to be a “shorter woman with dirty blonde hair”.
He added that he believed a passenger named Jane was a “mature woman with some piercing powder blue eyes”.
Asked where Ms Maxwell stood in the hierarchy of Epstein’s world, Mr Visoski said Maxwell “was the number two.” He added that “Epstein was the big number 1.”
He also recalled how Maxwell would often contact him to schedule flights for Epstein.
“She was the one that pretty much handled most of the finance, my expenses, spending in the office,” he told the court.
The testimony supports what Assistant US Attorney Lara Pomerantz told jurors in her opening statement on Monday when she said Epstein and Maxwell were “partners in crime.”
The first accuser in the child sex-trafficking trial testified in court that she had sexual contact with Jeffrey Epstein multiple times when she was 14 years old, sometimes with Maxwell in the room.
The accuser, who used the name “Jane”, alleged that Maxwell and Epstein would take her to a massage table in the late billionaire’s Palm Beach house and demonstrate how Epstein liked to be massaged.
Jane told the New York federal court that Maxwell’s demeanour was “very casual” during these interactions.
Now aged in her early 40s, Jane testified that Maxwell and Epstein first approached her and a group of friends at an arts summer camp in Michigan in the summer of 1994
Jane said her family was struggling financially after her father’s death, and that Epstein and Maxwell told her that they were benefactors of her camp and awarded many student scholarships.
After the camp ended, Epstein invited her and her mother over for tea, Jane said, adding that she was later invited by Maxwell and other Epstein employees to come on her own.
On one of those occasions, Jane testified that Epstein offered to help with her singing career before ending the conversation abruptly.
Jane said the late financier took her to his pool house where he performed a sexual act on her.
“I was terrified and felt gross and I felt ashamed,” Jane told the court.
Prosecutors argue Maxwell, the daughter of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, “served up” young girls to Epstein as part of a pyramid scheme of abuse.
However she has denied all charges against her, and her lawyers argue she is being made a proxy for Epstein, and accuse some of the alleged victims as being in it for the cash.
Epstein was found dead by suicide in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of sex trafficking and other crimes, including two perjury charges that will be tried at a later date.
Maxwell faces up to 80 years behind bars if convicted.
The trial is expected to last six weeks.
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