Maxwell complains of maggots, rats, creepy prison guards

Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison ‘living hell’ as jury selection opens for her trial for allegedly recruiting girls for abuse by Jeffrey Epstein.

Ghislaine Maxwell has described the “living hell” of prison and complained that she will not get a fair hearing as jury selection begins today for her trial for allegedly recruiting girls for abuse by the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The British former socialite, whose $AU21.97 million bail application was dismissed last week, claims that she has been abused by prison officers who watch her showers and have fed her “rotting” food during her 16 months behind bars.

Maxwell, 59, is being held in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York accused of procuring the victims for Epstein, her former boyfriend. The American financier was found hanged in his Manhattan jail cell aged 66 in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell is alleged to have enticed four girls — including one alleged British victim — aged as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 to 1997 at his homes in New York City, Florida, and New Mexico and at her own home on Mayfair, central London. She denies all the charges.

‘Shoes don’t fit properly’

Maxwell was reported by The Mail on Sunday to have said that during her time in jail she had “not had a nutritious meal” and has to sleep with fluorescent lights on, which have damaged her eyes. “I am weak, I am frail. I have no stamina. I am tired. I don’t even have shoes which fit properly,” she said.

Ghislaine Maxwell s led into court in shackles for a pre-trial hearing ahead of jury selection. Image: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2013. Picture: Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

“They feed me rotten food. One apple had maggots in it. I have not been allowed to exercise. I used to go to the loo with an open sewer drain and a friendly rat would regularly visit. I told the guards, but nothing was done until the rat popped out and charged a guard, who screamed in terror.”

‘Creepy’ guards

Maxwell, an Oxford University graduate and daughter of the disgraced newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell, said that she stopped showering because “creepy” guards watched her.

She said that vital evidence had arrived too late to prepare for the start of the trial on November 29 or appeared to have been tampered with before she received it in jail. “I fear it will be impossible to get a fair trial. I have tremendous fear that overwhelmingly negative media stories will poison my jury pool and affect the outcome of my trial despite the evidence that will demonstrate everything the jurors thought they knew isn’t true,” she said.

The trial will be attended by Virginia Giuffre, 38, who claims that at the age of 17 she had sex with the Duke of York at Maxwell’s London home in 2001. Prince Andrew, 61, denies involvement and is contesting Giuffre’s civil claim against him.

Matt Hellyer, a British former soldier who was head of Maxwell’s security team, told The Mail on Sunday that he had hired two people who looked like her and her brother Kevin, 62, to give the impression she had fled from the United States to France. He said: “They strolled in Paris for a couple of days and we leaked it to a newspaper. That is how we distracted the attention away from where Ghislaine really was. She was in the US at all times.”

He said that the intention had been to mislead the media and shield Maxwell from a “potential killer” after claims Epstein’s suicide had been faked. Hellyer said that although Maxwell had repeatedly moved properties, she was always available to be interviewed by the authorities. She was arrested in July last year during an FBI raid at her 156-acre estate in rural New Hampshire.

The Times