Prosecutors want Ghislaine Maxwell to serve 30 years jail

Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell could serve a huge jail term for sex crimes if US prosecutors have their way at sentencing.

US prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell to at least 30 years in prison for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls.

Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December of sex trafficking minors for the late disgraced financier and is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan next week.

Her lawyers have argued for leniency, citing a traumatic childhood and claiming that Maxwell is being unfairly punished because Epstein escaped trial.

They called for Judge Alison Nathan to hand down a sentence less than the probation department’s recommended 20 years.

But in a court documents tendered this week,, the government argued that Maxwell should go to jail for somewhere between 30 and 55 years.

She has shown an “utter lack of remorse” for her crimes, wrote Damian Williams, the US lawyer for the Southern District of New York.

“Instead of showing even a hint of acceptance of responsibility, the defendant makes a desperate attempt to cast blame wherever else she can,” he said.

“Maxwell was an adult who made her own choices. She made the choice to sexually exploit numerous underage girls.

Prosecutors want Ghislaine Maxwell to serve 30 years in jail.

“She made the choice to conspire with Epstein for years, working as partners in crime and causing devastating harm to vulnerable victims,” Williams said.

Maxwell, the Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, has already been held in detention for two years following her arrest in New Hampshire in the summer of 2020.

During her high-profile trial, prosecutors successfully argued that Maxwell was “the key” to Epstein’s scheme of enticing young girls to give him massages, during which he would sexually abuse them.

She was found guilty on five of six sexual abuse counts and her sentence could amount to an effective life term behind bars.

It will cap a dramatic fall for the former international jetsetter who grew up in wealth and privilege as a friend to royalty.

Her circle included Britain’s Prince Andrew, former US president and real estate baron Donald Trump and the Clinton family.

Epstein killed himself in 2019 while awaiting his own sex crimes trial in New York.

In February, Prince Andrew settled a sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre, who said she had been trafficked to the royal by Epstein and Maxwell

CLAIM IRA WANTED MAXWWELL DEAD

Lawyers for Maxwell have sensationally claimed she was in hiding when she was arrested in 2020 because she was on an IRA hit list.

Her legal team argues she was hiding because she received death threats after associate Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest in July 2019.

Her lawyers told New York Judge Alison Nathan she had been also been subjected to death threats in the 1960s when her father was an MP.

“Decades earlier, when Ms Maxwell was just a child and her father was a Member of Parliament, UK authorities found a hit list of potential targets in a safe house used by the Irish Republican Army. Ms Maxwell’s name was first on the list.”

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein getting cosy on board his private jet. Picture: AFP

Epstein was found unresponsive in his New York prison cell in August 2019 after an apparent suicide attempt, and later died, while another Epstein associate, Jean-Luc Brunel, was also found dead in his prison cell in France back in February.

Maxwell has always claimed she is innocent.

In a filing to the court on Wednesday while pleading for a sentence “well below” 20 years, Maxwell’s legal team said a prison inmate planned to strangle her for cash.

“[One] of the female inmates in Ms Maxwell’s housing unit told at least three other inmates that she had been offered money to murder Ms Maxwell and that she planned to strangle her in her sleep.”

The unnamed inmate allegedly said “she had been offered money to murder” and claimed that the money she would get from the hit would be would be worth “an additional 20 years’ incarceration,” the document stated.

“This incident reflects the brutal reality that there are numerous prison inmates who would not hesitate to kill Ms Maxwell — whether for money, fame, or simple ‘street cred,” her lawyers said.

Maxwell has always maintained her innocence.

They also claimed “other similarly charged defendants” – including sexual abuser and cultist Keith Raniere and disgraced pop star and paedophile R Kelly – were both given conventional detention “in general population” in Brooklyn before their convictions, in contrast to Maxwell.

The lawyers argued the former socialite should be sentenced “well below” the 20-year imprisonment authorities had recommended.

In a pre-sentencing report, Maxwell’s lawyers said she had been subjected to harsh conditions in jail, and provided details about her emotionally distressing upbringing as part of their argument for more leniency.

While in solitary confinement in a 2.7m x 2m cell, she was deprived of sleep by guards who checked on her every 15 minutes by shining a flashlight in her eyes.

She was fed rancid food that often did not adhere to her vegetarian — or “non-flesh” — diet; she did not always have access to soap, a toothbrush, or toothpaste; and complained of painful, humiliating body cavity searches; and while nominally allowed to exercise, she was given ill-fitting shoes that prevented her from actually running around.

Ghislaine Maxwell in court for her trial last year. Picture: AFP

Her legal team also claimed Maxwell’s father, publishing tycoon Robert, was abusive toward her and his other children.

“Ghislaine vividly recalls a time when, at age 13, she tacked a poster of a pony on the newly painted wall of her bedroom,” they told the court.

“Rather than mar the paint with tape, she carefully hammered a thin tack to mount the poster. This outraged her father, who took the hammer and banged on Ghislaine’s dominant hand, leaving it severely bruised and painful for weeks to come.”

Maxwell’s lawyers claim it was Epstein behind the shocking abuse. Picture: Getty Images

They also said Maxwell’s harsh sentencing were intended for serial abusers of children, even as there is “absolutely no evidence that Ms Maxwell is attracted to minors or has the sort of uncontrollable impulses that would compel her to reoffend”.

“Indeed, after she moved on from Epstein in the early 2000s, Ms Maxwell was involved in two long-term relationships with men who had young children and was actively involved in their lives without even the slightest hint of impropriety,” they said.

Originally published as Prosecutors want Ghislaine Maxwell to serve 30 years jail