Ghislaine Maxwell helped abuse me from age 14, first accuser tells trial
The first accuser to give evidence at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial has described being sexually abused by the financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The first accuser to give evidence at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial has described being sexually abused by the financier Jeffrey Epstein when she was 14 while the British heiress calmly issued instructions.
“Ghislaine was very casual, acting like it wasn’t a big deal,” said the witness, who is now an actor and was testifying under the pseudonym Jane.
In her testimony to Manhattan federal court she described “sexualised massages” and sexual encounters with Epstein and Maxwell at which “other people were present – Ghislaine would take her clothes off and it turned into an orgy,” she said.
“They were kissing and performing oral sex on each other and full-on intercourse.”
Jane, now 41, said she was abused “pretty much every time” that she visited Epstein’s house as a teenager, starting at the age of 14.
“Whether it was just him or whether there were other women involved or me and Jeffrey and Ghislaine, it all started to seem the same after a while and I just became numb to it.”
Ms Maxwell, 59, has been charged with conspiring to entice and “transport” girls she knew were under-age to be sexually abused by Epstein, and with sex trafficking between 1994 and 2004. She has pleaded not guilty.
Jane told the court that she first met Epstein in 1994 at a music camp in Michigan, where he introduced himself as a donor. Discovering that they both lived in Palm Beach, Epstein asked for her mother’s phone number.
The then teenager’s father had died of leukemia nine months earlier. The family was bankrupt and had lost their home in Palm Beach, Florida.
She said that after she returned home, she and her mother were invited to Epstein’s mansion, where, over tea and pastries, she was asked what she wanted to do with her life. Epstein and Ms Maxwell began to take her shopping for clothes and to the cinema. “There was a lot of bragging about how they were friends with everyone,” she said – they mentioned Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.
Invited to Epstein’s home one day, he told her she needed to focus on her aspirations “whether that be acting, modelling, singing,” she said. “Then he took my hand and said: ‘Follow me,’” she said.
She said he took her into the pool house and led her on to a futon where he “pulled his pants down and masturbated on me”, she said. Afterwards “he went to the bathroom, cleaned himself and acted like nothing happened” while she remained “frozen in fear”.
Not long after that she was with Epstein and Ms Maxwell at the house when he gave a similar abrupt order to follow him upstairs to his bedroom. “They took their clothes off and started to fondle each other, while giggling and he asked me to take my top off. Jeffrey proceeded to masturbate while she was kissing him.”
She said Maxwell “showed me how Jeffrey liked to be massaged”, by rubbing his feet and shoulders and by “twisting the nipples hard”. She would also instruct her on how Epstein liked to be touched, Jane said. She said he liked to touch her with a back massager “even though I said it hurt”. She said group sex sessions, with other older adults, mostly women, happened every two weeks. Asked how they would begin, Jane said: “It would typically be something very casual like by the pool or sitting around in a living room or in the kitchen.” Then “we were summoned to follow Jeffrey (to) his bedroom or massage room.”
She said she first spoke of the abuse to a boyfriend in the late 2000s, around the time that Epstein was arrested for child abuse in Florida and “you started to see his face everywhere”. She later received $US5m from a victim’s compensation fund, reduced to $2.9m after legal fees.
The Duke of York was mentioned for the first time at the trial on Tuesday. Christian Everdell, for the defence, questioned Lawrence Visoski, who managed and flew Epstein’s aircraft. “You are familiar with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York?” Everdell asked. “He flew on Epstein’s planes.”
“Yes, he did,” Mr Visoski replied.
He also recalled flying Virginia Roberts Giuffre, now 38 and living in Australia, who claims that she was made to have sex with the duke by Epstein and Ms Maxwell as a teenager, in a civil suit filed this year. Andrew, 61, has denied the claims. Mr Visoski said that Ms Giuffre “was on the plane a couple of times”.
Mr Visoski could also remember flying Mr Trump, the actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker and the former astronaut and senator John Glenn.
Mr Visoski said that he could not say for sure whether any of Ms Maxwell’s alleged victims had flown on one of the aircraft.
The trial continues.
The Times
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