Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty of trafficking underage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein

vt-author-image

By Nika Shakhnazarova

Article saved!Article saved!

Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of helping the late financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, Reuters reports.

Maxwell was charged with six counts alleging that she recruited, groomed, and abused four underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Maxwell, 60, was found guilty of five federal charges, including sex trafficking of a minor, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three related counts of conspiracy.

 wp-image-1263137055
Credit: REUTERS / Alamy

She was acquitted on the charge of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, per BBC News.

Maxwell, who now faces up to 65 years in prison, showed no emotion when the verdicts were read. Judge Alison Nathan did not set a sentencing date after the verdict.

Maxwell's trial heard how she summoned a 14-year-old girl to an orgy, groped another victim, and laid a schoolgirl outfit out for a third accuser before a sexualized massage with Epstein because she "thought it would be fun".

The full indictment against Maxwell listed six charges, including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, and conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

 wp-image-1263136344
Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy

Maxwell was also accused of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, sex trafficking conspiracy, sex trafficking of a minor, and lying under oath by hiding her participation in Epstein's offenses during a separate civil case.

On Wednesday, December 29, she was convicted on five of the six counts.

Maxwell was found not guilty of enticing a minor to engage in illegal sex acts – which alleged the defendant coerced one of the accusers, who testified under the pseudonym "Jane", to travel from Florida to Manhattan so that Epstein could have sex with her.

 wp-image-1263137647
Credit: REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg/Alamy

Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 at her New Hampshire home.

Epstein's final cause of death was revealed to be suicide by hanging in his jail cell in August 2019. This took place as he awaited, without the chance of bail, his trial on sex trafficking charges.

While the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, his death had sparked numerous conspiracy theories including that he was murdered.

Featured image credit: WENN Rights Ltd / Alamy