Monday marked the beginning of the long-awaited trial against Ghislaine Maxwell, ex-socialite from Britain. Prosecutors said that Maxwell, who is 59 years old, was being held without bail. “involved in every aspect”Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, has been sentenced to life.
“She was in on it from the start. The defendant and Epstein lured their victims with a promise of a bright future, only to sexually exploit them,”Lara Pomerantz, Assistant U.S. attorney, at Maxwell’s New York trial beginning in Manhattan.
She is charged with procuring 14-year-old girls to perform “so-called massages”According to prosecutors, this turned into sexual abuse. By deluging the girls with gifts, money and personal praise, Maxwell and Epstein were able to portray the abuse as something “casual and normal,” Pomerantz said.
Epstein, a financier and socialite who hobnobbed with Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, killed himself in 2019 while in custody awaiting trial for sex trafficking. In 2008, he was convicted in Florida on charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.
Maxwell’s lawyer argued she also was a victim. Bobbi Sternheim said her client was really the “Make a man behave badly and use him as a scapegoat” comparing her to the biblical couple of Adam and Eve.
“She’s not Jeffrey Epstein. She’s not like Jeffrey Epstein” Sternheim said. “He’s the proverbial elephant in the room. He is not visible, but he is consuming this entire courtroom and overflow courtrooms where other members of the public are viewing,” she said.
The four women scheduled to testify against Maxwell were being guided by decades-old memories and attorneys who led them to get money from a fund established by his estate after his suicide, the defense lawyer said.
Maxwell was once romantically involved with Epstein, but remained his good friend and trusted advisor, the prosecution said. She is accused of recruiting and providing young girls for his abuse. The charges are based on the allegations of the women, who said Epstein and Maxwell abused as them as teens from 1994 to 2004.
Maxwell has denied the accusations, calling them “Absolute rubbish” and has pleaded guilty.
She is the daughter British media magnate Robert Maxwell. He died in 1991 after he fell from his yacht.
