Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty in sex-trafficking trial to aid Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer had one request of the judge after she was found guilty in five of six counts in her sex-trafficking trial.

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of sex crimes including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a minor.

Maxwell, 60, was found guilty by a 12-person jury in New York of five of the six counts she was facing and could potentially spend the rest of her life behind bars after grooming underage girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to abuse while mingling with the rich and famous.

US Attorney Damian Williams issued a statement after the verdict saying: “A unanimous jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable – facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children.

“Crimes that she committed with her long-time partner and co-conspirator, Jeffrey Epstein. The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done. I want to commend the bravery of the girls – now grown women – who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom. Their courage and willingness to face their abuser made this case, and today’s result, possible.”

The breakdown of the counts and verdicts are:

First count: Conspiracy to entice minors to travel across state lines with the intent of engaging in illegal sexual activity, Maxwell was found guilty.

Second count: Enticing a minor – the accuser “Jane” – to travel with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity, Maxwell was not guilty.

Third count: Conspiracy to transport minors to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity, Maxwell was guilty.

Fourth count: Transporting a minor – “Jane” – with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity, Maxwell was guilty.

Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, is accused of grooming underage girls to be exploited by her long-time partner Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial. Picture: US District Court for the Southern District of New York / AFP.

Fifth count: Sex trafficking conspiracy, Maxwell was guilty.

Sixth count: Sex trafficking of a minor – the accuser “Carolyn”, Maxwell was guilty.

The sixth count is the most serious, carrying a potential maximum sentence of 40 years in jail.

The fourth count carries a potential maximum of 10 years in prison and the three other counts Maxwell was found guilty of were all conspiracy counts, which carry a potential maximum sentence of five years each.

US media reports Maxwell left quickly after the verdict had looked at her siblings in the courtroom. She also struggled to stand and did not look at the jury.

Maxwell sat passively in the Manhattan courtroom, slowly removing her mask to take sips of water, as Judge Alison Nathan read out the verdicts for each of the six counts.

Each juror then confirmed the verdict was unanimous.

Nathan offered her “sincere thanks” to the jury for their service, adding that they served with “diligence.” At 5.10 pm local time, Nathan adjourned the proceedings and Maxwell walked out of the courtroom into detention as she has done every day of the trial.

One of Maxwell's lawyers also asked the judge if his client could get a Covid-19 booster vaccine. Judge Nathan said she understood the vaccine was available at the The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where she was being held.

No date was set for her sentencing.

Ms Maxwell, the daughter of former British newspaper baron Robert Maxwell, was accused of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the late Epstein, between 1994 and 2004.

Three of the four women who testified also claimed that Ms Maxwell touched their breasts when they were teens.

Ms Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to the charges. She faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted on all six counts.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers claim their client has been made a scapegoat for Epstein. Picture: US District Court for the Southern District of New York / AFP.

On Monday, the jurors made several requests, including for a definition of the term “enticement”, and to review additional testimony transcripts.

The “enticement” query was in reference to two counts Ms Maxwell is charged with that involve “enticing a minor to travel to engage in sex acts”. That count is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Judge Nathan directed the panel to legal instructions provided to them at the beginning of the trial, which said: “the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms Maxwell knowingly persuaded or induced or enticed or coerced an individual to travel in interstate commerce, as alleged in the indictment”.

“The terms ‘persuaded’, ‘induced’, ‘enticed’, or ‘coerced’, have their ordinary, everyday meanings,” the document read.

Ghislaine Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to six counts of sex trafficking and conspiracy. Picture: US District Court for the Southern District of New York / AFP.

Judge Nathan added that “entice means to attract, induce or lure using hope or desire,” citing previous court cases.

The charge of enticement relates to “Jane”, the pseudonym for a woman who testified that she was first sexually abused by Epstein in 1994 when she was 14, and that Ms Maxwell participated in some of their encounters.

Last week, they requested transcripts of each of the four accusers’ testimonies, including Jane’s, as well as that of Juan Alessi, the house manager of the Palm Beach mansion Ms Maxwell shared with Epstein.

On Monday, the jury also asked for coloured highlighters, a whiteboard, “Post-It” notes and testimony transcripts from several witnesses – including that of Epstein’s former pilot, David Rodgers, and ”Matt”, a pseudonym for Jane’s ex-boyfriend.

In his testimony, Mr Rodgers – who worked for Epstein for almost 30 years between 1991 and 2019 – described Ms Maxwell as “number two” in Epstein’s hierarchy. Jane claimed to have travelled aboard Epstein’s private jets on several occasions, including with Britain’s Prince Andrew.

“She was a passenger on our flight,” Mr Rodgers testified, citing a flight log that recorded Jane as one of his passengers for the first time, in November 1996.

“She’s flown with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and other people as well.”

According to his log book, the trio also flew from Teterboro to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Epstein owns a ranch, on May 9, 1997. Jane testified that she was sexually assaulted by Epstein in his bedroom at the property after Ms Maxwell allegedly ordered her to go into his bedroom.

Mr Rodgers told the court that he did not believe at the time that any of the women who flew unaccompanied on Epstein’s planes were under the age of 18 and that he had not witnessed anything that suggested any sexual activity had occurred aboard.

Ghislaine Maxwell speaks with her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim during the trial, in a courtroom sketch on December 16, 2021. Picture: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg.

Matt, who dated Jane from 2006 to 2014, testified that Jane had told him Epstein was a “godfather” who had assisted her family financially but that she had to do things in exchange for money. He said Jane told him that her mother felt “comfortable” leaving her with Epstein because an older woman was present.

But Matt also said Jane did not tell him that woman was Ms Maxwell until she was arrested in July 2020.

Jurors also asked the judge to review the testimony of Gregory Parkinson, a former police officer who in 2005 searched Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida home where he said authorities found a green massage table.

In the earlier days of the trial, prosecutors brought the table into the courtroom and said it was the exact one used by Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.

Prosecutor Alison Moe argued in her closing statements that the massage table was made in California and shipped to Florida, so impacted interstate commerce, which is an element of the sex-trafficking charge.

The sex-trafficking charge involving Carolyn, who testified using only her first name, is the most serious crime of which Ms Maxwell is accused and carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida on February 12, 2000. Picture: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images).

Carolyn told the jury that she was 13 years old when she was recruited by Ms Maxwell to give Epstein sexualised massages for hundreds of dollars each time. She testified that Ms Maxwell fondled her breasts and told her at the time that she “had a great body for Epstein and his friends”.

Maxwell also turned 60 on Saturday, spending her milestone birthday behind bars.

“Happy birthday,” her lawyer Jeffrey Pagliuca said loudly as the pair hugged at the defence table, also wishing her a “Merry Christmas”.

Ms Maxwell’s lawyers argued she has been wrongly targeted by prosecutors and accusers as a scapegoat for Epstein took his own life in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on related sex-abuse charges in 2019.

“She’s being tried here for being with Jeffrey Epstein, and maybe that was the biggest mistake of her life — but it was not a crime,” defence lawyer Laura Menninger told the jury.

Ms Maxwell didn’t testify but in a defiant statement to the court earlier this month said that prosecutors had failed to prove her guilt.