Neighbours tried to force ‘smug’ Ghislaine Maxwell out of town

Fresh details emerge about Ghislaine Maxwell’s secret ‘spouse’ and life in hiding in court papers.

Ghislaine Maxwell and the American shipping entrepreneur Scott Borgerson bought a house together in Massachusetts and lived there for years before the arrest of her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein forced her into hiding, court and property records suggest.

Court documents also show that neighbours fought a legal battle with Mr Borgerson and Ms Maxwell over access to a beach on the private estate where they lived.

“They were a couple, they lived together,” one neighbour in Manchester-by-the-Sea told The Times yesterday. “His kids lived with his ex-wife in Rockport [a nearby town] and spent time with them.” The neighbour added: “He was asking about babysitters, that kind of thing.”

The documents, which were first reported by the Daily Mail, cast new light on Ms Maxwell’s links to Mr Borgerson after a prosecutor told a court in New York that she was married but had declined to provide the identity of her spouse.

Scott Borgerson, who has been named as the possible mystery "husband" of Ghislaine Maxwell. Picture: LinkedIn

One resident of the private estate told the paper that the legal battle over access to the beach began after they learnt of Ms Maxwell’s history and lawsuits accusing her of recruiting and grooming Epstein’s sex-abuse victims.

“[Fellow residents] were absolutely appalled to learn who they were allowing to have the run of their property,” the resident said. “The second they learnt she was involved with Epstein they decided to try to limit how much they could use their land.”

Planning records show an application to renovate the property was made in July 2016 by Mr Borgerson and “Jennifer Ellmax”, a surname that was also the title of Ms Maxwell’s companies and appeared in an email address linked to her former home in New York.

Prosecutors allege that Ms Maxwell, 58, the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, went by the name “Jen” while buying the house in Bradford, New Hampshire, where she was arrested on July 2, accused of grooming under-age girls who were abused by Epstein between 1994 and 1997.

Ghislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing where she was denied bail for her role aiding Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and eventually abuse of minor girls, in Manhattan Federal Court. Picture: Reuters

Ms Maxwell, who has pleaded not guilty, was denied bail this week and is being held at a jail in Brooklyn.

Amid speculation over the identity of her secret spouse, former friends of the British socialite in New York suggested that Mr Borgerson, 43, was the most likely candidate. The former coastguard, was listed for a while as a director of Ms Maxwell’s oceanic foundation, the TerraMar Project.

“The fact that he was passionate about saving the oceans and Ghislaine had that foundation makes it a good fit,” Christopher Mason, a British journalist who knew her in New York, said.

“The thing that I thought about both her and Scott was that they were pretty darned impressed with themselves,” a neighbour in Massachusetts said. “He had this business, she had done a presentation on the oceans in front of the United Nations but I had no idea who she was.”

The neighbour thinks that Ms Maxwell may have introduced herself as “Max”. She also recalled that “Ms Maxwell went to give a presentation at [his] children’s school . . . to talk about the oceans.

“Can you imagine what it was like for people to find out that a woman with that pedigree was in their school?”

Mr Borgerson could not be reached for comment.

The Times