Ghislaine Maxwell’s deposition about sordid sex life unsealed as prison conditions take their toll
Accused sex abuser Ghislaine Maxwell is ‘on the verge of starvation’ after allegations in a 400 page deposition have been made public, according to a family friend.
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- Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell starved girls to keep them thin
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A friend of imprisoned, accused sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell is trying to spring her from her Brooklyn cell, claiming she is on the verge of starvation and humiliated every day by her prison-issued paper clothes.
Brian Basham is a close family friend who wants federal authorities to grant the disgraced British socialite bail while she waits to be tried for sex trafficking next summer, according to the New York Post.
Two weeks after Maxwell was taken into custody, a judge denied her bond offer of $5 million ($A7m), deeming her a flight risk.
Maxwell maintains her innocence.
Basham insists his friend has lost 25 pounds in the four months she has been behind bars, because corrections officials won’t give her the vegan diet she follows.
One day, she went 20 hours without food, he said. When she complained, guards removed her scale.
Another point of contention is Maxwell’s wardrobe of paper clothes. She isn’t even allowed to wear a bra, Basham complained, because she is considered a suicide risk.
The six charges she faces stem from her friendship with deceased paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell more than a year ago.
Epstein was taken off suicide watch about two weeks before he killed himself.
Basham alleges Maxwell is stuck alone in a tiny with absolutely no human contact — even the prison guards have stopped talking to her — and she isn’t receiving letters her sisters have written.
That Maxwell has not been granted bail is an outrage to Basham, who pointed out convicted sex offenders Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby were both free while they awaited their trials.
“They were men who were a danger to women,” he said. “That can’t be said of Ghislaine at all.”
As for Maxwell fleeing the country on one of her three passports, Basham said: “One of the passports is a French passport. From the moment Jeffrey Epstein was arrested she could have gone to France, but she stayed.”
PRINCE ANDREW’S NAME REDACTED FROM ‘SEX FILES’
The Ghislaine Maxwell deposition about her sordid sex life has been released — after months of wrangling by her defence lawyers to keep it under wraps.
US District Judge Loretta Preska ordered the release of the 465-page transcript from the seven-hour deposition in July, but Maxwell’s lawyers appealed the decision to the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
The higher court upheld Judge Preska’s ruling on Monday, but the parties have been squabbling over their proposed redactions, according to the New York Post, which published the transcript in full.
Maxwell allegedly made statements in the interview about “consensual, intimate conduct with other adults” but had refused to answer many of the questions posed to her, according to court papers.
Epstein’s longtime confidante and one-time lover was arrested in July on a six-count federal indictment for trafficking underage girls to be abused by her and the late financier.
She was also charged with two counts of perjury for allegedly lying under oath about Epstein’s deviant sexual behaviour in the 2016 deposition.
In the transcript, Maxwell says she doesn’t remember where she met Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who claims to have been recruited from a job at Mar-a-Lago as a teen to become an Epstein masseuse and eventually “sex slave.”
Maxwell said she did remember topless women at Epstein’s pool but could not confirm if they were underage or if there were ever underage girls at his properties.
“Again, I can’t testify to that because I have no idea what you are talking about,” Maxwell said.
The disgraced British socialite said she did not participate in orgies with Epstein and young girls, including a specific allegation that involved the participation of a 13-year-old.
Much of the deposition document was hidden from public view until the Miami Herald first sued in April 2018 for dozens of documents in the case to be unsealed.
While Ms Giuffre supported release of the transcript in July, Maxwell’s lawyers fought to block its release.
That ended on Thursday morning, local time, after days of wrangling over redactions, when the transcript of the deposition became public.
It reveals the extent to which Maxwell was entwined in Epstein’s life despite her attempts to be obstructive in her sworn testimony about her relationship with him and his empire.
“I had an office with a door so the door would be shut and I would be working. I’m not responsible for what Jeffrey does and I don’t always pay attention to what happens in the house,” she said.
MAXWELL QUIZZED ON ‘BASKET OF SEX TOYS’
In the deposition Maxwell feigned ignorance, baulking at questions about a “laundry basket of sex toys” and nude photos in Epstein’s houses.
The 465-page transcript of the deposition includes hundreds of denials from the longtime Epstein associate, who claimed she knew nothing about his alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
Maxwell squirmed when probed about her sex life during the seven-hour grilling session by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley.
“Did you have a basket of sex toys that you kept in the Palm Beach house?” McCawley asked, according to the New York Post.
The question was followed by several objections from Maxwell’s lawyer, with McCawley repeatedly rephrasing the question.
“You have to define what are you talking about,” Maxwell answered at one point.
“A sex toy meaning a vibrator of some kind, sometimes they are called dildos, of that nature, anything like that?” the lawyer asked.
Maxwell has been accused of “gagging and raping” one victim with a sex toy.
The former socialite replied, “I don’t recollect anything that would formally be a dildo, anything like that.”
“How would you describe sex toys?” McCawley followed up, to which Maxwell answered, “I wouldn’t describe sex toys.”
The transcript also calls into question Maxwell’s claim that she had little contact with Epstein after his release from a Florida jail in 2009. It contradicts her later assertion that Epstein paid her legal bills at the time of the civil case.
In the US Virgin Islands Maxwell is suing the Epstein estate, which is valued at more than $US600 million, according to the Miami Herald.
She has argued the estate must cover her legal bills because she was an employee who had an agreement with Epstein, until his death in August 2019 in a Manhattan prison.
In the deposition, she claimed Epstein was not paying her legal bills.
She also contradicted that Epstein worked for her father Robert Maxwell, a high-profile publishing baron who died under mysterious circumstances on a boat in 1991 after an embezzlement scandal.
When asked if she was ever officially Epstein’s girlfriend, Maxwell replied that it was a “tricky question.”
“There were times when I would have liked to think of myself as his girlfriend,” she said.
She also explained why she had been loyal to Epstein even when he was in jail.
Ghislaine Maxwell testified that Jeffrey Epstein was "very good to me when my father died,'' which was one reason she remained loyal to him even after he went to jail. pic.twitter.com/Nv26zbjFhC
— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) October 22, 2020
In the deposition document, the powerful men linked to Epstein, who were on the flight logs for his private jet, or observed at his properties, were protected by Maxwell’s denials.
The cover-up continues.... pic.twitter.com/kFACsGubKq
— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) October 22, 2020
It comes as lawyers representing Maxwell attempted to stop the deposition from becoming public.
Maxwell, who is currently being held in a New York prison awaiting trial, pleaded not guilty to charges she helped the billionaire recruit and groom underage girls as young as 14 years old to engage in illegal sexual acts in the mid-1990s and early 2000s.
Epstein accuser Ms Giuffre alleged that Maxwell introduced her to Epstein, under the allegedly falsified guise that she could get work as a massage therapist.
Ms Roberts Giuffre accused Maxwell and Epstein of forcing her to have sex with wealthy and powerful men including Prince Andrew, several times, allegations which the royal has unequivocally denied.
When asked in the deposition about Prince Andrew’s involvement, Maxwell denied all knowledge, and the deposition transcript also redacted Andrew’s name.
Why are these men's names redacted? It's clear this is Prince Andrew.... pic.twitter.com/uqTuALfBLc
— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) October 22, 2020
The explosive documents contain details of the Duke’s infamous London trip where it is alleged he had sex with Giuffre.
The bombshell documents reveal that Maxwell was interrogated about a night out in London with Epstein and a mystery friend who used a puppet to grope victims.
She branded Virginia Roberts an “awful fantasist” and called her a “liar” 28 times in the documents, saying that her bathtub was too small for any kind of sexual activity.
Maxwell was grilled over mystery pal using puppet to grope victims.
RICH AND POWERFUL NAMES ERASED FROM DOCUMENTS
Prince Andrew’s name was scrubbed from the entire document despite numerous conversations that clearly referred to him.
Miami journalist Julie K. Brown, who broke the Epstein story in the Miami Herald, fumed on Twitter on Thursday that the names of the rich and powerful, including Victoria’s Secret owner Les Wexner, and the Clintons, had also been redacted in the document.
Maxwell confirms Bill Clinton was on Epstein’s jet – but former US President’s name is redacted in the transcript document.
However, the court document missed redacting the names of two female victims of the deceased paedophile, including a 14-year-old.
Maxwell was arrested in July at her New Hampshire hideaway for the alleged sex crimes, conspiracy and perjury in connection with Epstein.
Maxwell contended in court papers that unsealing the deposition “will lead to a violation of due process right to a fair trial by an impartial jury”.
Maxwell’s legal team said in court documents: “The district court’s unsealing order eviscerates the promise of confidentiality on which Ms Maxwell and numerous third parties reasonably relied. It sanctions the perjury trap unfairly set for Ms Maxwell, in violation of the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”
When Maxwell sat for the deposition in 2016 she “was compelled to answer numerous personal, sensitive, and allegedly incriminatory questions”, her lawyers said, and she did so only under the guarantee of confidentiality.