Ghislaine Maxwell ‘kept topless photos of girls taken at Jeffrey Epstein’s pool’, says ex butler

Ghislaine Maxwell kept an album of photographs she had taken of topless girls sunbathing at Epstein’s pool, says ex butler.

Jeffrey Epstein’s former butler claimed Ghislaine Maxwell had a special camera, saying “I know she went out and took pictures in the pool, because later I would see them at the desk” while cleaning at the disgraced financier’s home. Picture: Getty

Ghislaine Maxwell took photographs of topless young women sunbathing around the pool at Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion and kept them in an album, according to deposition from a former butler that has been unsealed by New York court.

Juan Alessi, 70, recalled seeing the photographs while cleaning her desk in Epstein’s home, though he denied suggestions from lawyers that they were nude photographs. “I saw topless pictures of girls. I don’t think I can remember seeing nude photographs,” he said. “Sometimes I saw these albums and there were pictures of girls at the pool.”

Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion. Picture: Getty

Mr Alessi gave a deposition in 2016 as part of a defamation case brought by one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, against Ms Maxwell. The case was settled in 2017 but the Miami Herald and Ms Giuffre sought the release of documents related to the case. Parts of Mr Alessi’s deposition were reported in 2018 when Judge Loretta Preska ordered the release of some of them.

Epstein committed suicide in a Manhattan jail last year while awaiting trial for sex trafficking minors. Ms Maxwell, 58, was arrested in July and charged with conspiring to “entice” and “transport” minors to Epstein between 1994 and 1997 and with perjury, for denying knowledge of such a scheme in a deposition she gave in the Giuffre case. She has denied the charges and her lawyers fought the unsealing of depositions she and others gave in the suit, arguing that their release could prejudice her trial next year.

In Mr Alessi’s deposition, Epstein’s former housekeeper, driver and maintenance man, was asked if he would ever “transport any of the girls that would come over to give [Epstein] massages” and replied that he did so “occasionally”. Asked if Ms Maxwell ordered him to “go pick up a certain girl”, he replied: “It was basically him. [Epstein] would ask me.”

He was also asked if he ever saw her conducting photo shoots with young women. “No,” he replied. “I know that she went out and took pictures in the pool, because later I would see them at the desk or at the house.” He added that “99.9 per cent of the time they were topless. They were European girls.” He said Ms Maxwell had a special camera.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pictured in 2005. Picture: Getty

Ms Maxwell denied taking nude photos in her own deposition, which was released last month. “I took thousands of photos; not of people, I mostly take pictures of landscapes and things. I have no recollection specifically of people that I took pictures of,” she said. Ms Maxwell has denied any wrongdoing.

The Times