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Published 11:33 17 Dec 2021 GMT
A judge has thrown out Ghislaine Maxwell's request to allow her witnesses to testify anonymously.
Maxwell is charged with six counts alleging that she recruited, groomed, and abused four underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces 80 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.
She is accused of helping financier Epstein abuse underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She denies all charges against her.
Maxwell argued that three witnesses lined up to speak in her favor might pull out unless they were granted the same right to secrecy as her alleged victims.
However, Judge Alison Nathan rejected the "unprecedented request" by citing the "constitutional right" of the press and public to know a courtroom witness's identity.
Maxwell's lawyer Bobbi Sternheim had claimed that unless the trio could testify in privacy, it could "impact the willingness of these witnesses to testify, thereby compromising Maxwell's right to present her defense".
But in a blow to the British socialite, the judge said if her witnesses refused to testify, her lawyers could force them to by issuing a court summons.
It comes as Maxwell's family said she is "too fragile" to give evidence about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew.
A spokesperson for the Maxwell family told The Telegraph that it is "unlikely" she will testify as she is "too fragile".
By not taking the witness stand, the 59-year-old will avoid being probed about her relationship with Epstein, as well as other well-known friends who have been mentioned in the trial.
That includes Prince Andrew, who is being sued by longtime Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Guiffre, for allegedly sexually abusing her when she was just 17 years old. The Duke of York has denied all allegations against him.
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 at her New Hampshire home, and has since denied any involvement in the incidents of sex trafficking that her now-deceased ex-partner, Epstein, was accused of.
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.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted.
Published 11:19 16 Dec 2021 GMT
Ghislaine Maxwell is avoiding having to give evidence about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew as her family says she is "too fragile" to take the stand.
Maxwell is charged with six counts alleging that she recruited, groomed, and abused four underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces 80 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.
She is accused of helping financier Epstein abuse underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She denies all charges against her.
Maxwell's brother Ian previously claimed that his sister was being mistreated while being held in jail awaiting trial, describing it as a "fundamental abuse of human rights" that is "designed to break her".
Now, ahead of her defense case which opens on Thursday, December 16, a spokesperson for the Maxwell family told The Telegraph that it is "unlikely" she will testify as she is "too fragile".
By not taking the witness stand, the 59-year-old will avoid being probed about her relationship with Epstein, as well as other well-known friends who have been mentioned in the trial.
That includes Prince Andrew, who is being sued by longtime Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Guiffre, for allegedly sexually abusing her when she was just 17 years old.
The Duke of York has denied all allegations against him.
Speaking about this latest statement about Maxwell, a source told The Mirror: "Ghislaine is perfectly entitled to refuse to give evidence. It is up to the prosecution to prove their case against her with or without her testimony.
"Crucially for her defense team - whether she was fragile or not - by not having Ghislaine give evidence, it prevents the prosecution from asking her about her relationship with Epstein and others, including Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton.
"If she does take the stand, it's likely the Government would have in the box for days."
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 at her New Hampshire home, and has since denied any involvement in the incidents of sex trafficking that her now-deceased ex-partner, Epstein, was accused of.
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.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted.
Published 11:34 21 Dec 2021 GMT
Ghislaine Maxwell's defense attorneys said that the four accusers who testified against her had their memories manipulated over time, wrongfully implicating Maxwell in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes.
Maxwell is charged with six counts alleging that she recruited, groomed, and abused four underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces 80 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.
She is accused of helping financier Epstein abuse underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She denies all charges against her.
Laura Menninger, an attorney representing Maxwell, responded to prosecutors' narrative that Maxwell recruited girls for Epstein to sexually abuse because the socialite's father, the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, left no money behind when he died in 1991.
Prosecutors have suggested Ghislaine Maxwell needed access to Epstein's money in order to keep up a lavish lifestyle.
"Does that make sense for a woman in her 30s?" Menninger asked jurors in her closing argument. "That she needed the lifestyle, so she was willing to drag 14-year-old girls in for sex."
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 at her New Hampshire home, and has since denied any involvement in the incidents of sex trafficking that her now-deceased ex-partner, Epstein, was accused of.
Jurors begin deliberating at around 4:50 PM and are expected to go home at 6 PM before returning on Tuesday, December 21, to continue.
It comes as Maxwell's family said she is "too fragile" to give evidence about disgraced financier Epstein and Prince Andrew.
A spokesperson for the Maxwell family told The Telegraph that it is "unlikely" she will testify as she is "too fragile".
By not taking the witness stand, the 59-year-old will avoid being probed about her relationship with Epstein, as well as other well-known friends who have been mentioned in the trial.
That includes Prince Andrew, who is being sued by longtime Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Guiffre, for allegedly sexually abusing her when she was just 17 years old. The Duke of York has denied all allegations against him.
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.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted.
Published 10:47 30 Nov 2021 GMT
On the opening day of Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial, the court heard how the defendant allegedly "served up" young girls for Jeffrey Epstein in a "pyramid scheme of abuse".
According to the prosecution, Epstein and Maxwell used a "playbook" to recruit and abuse girls under the age of consent, NBC News reports.
They went on to refer to 59-year-old Maxwell as the "lady of the house" and an integral part of her deceased ex-boyfriend's sex crimes.
According to the New York Times, it was also alleged that Maxwell and Epstein committed these crimes together for a decade, with Maxwell having "normalized abusive sexual conduct".
Per Reuters, prosecutor Lara Pomerantz said at the Manhattan federal court: "Between 1994 and 2004, the defendant sexually exploited young girls.
"She preyed on vulnerable young girls, manipulated them, and served them up to be sexually abused. The defendant was trafficking kids for sex."
Pomerantz also alleged that the British socialite "walked the girls into a room where she knew that man would molest them, and there were times she was in the room when it happened, making it all feel normal and casual."
As reported by the Independent, the prosecutor claimed that Maxwell and Epstein would initiate the sexual abuse by coaxing young girls into "massaging" Epstein in order to "normalize" physical contact.
"Make no mistake: She knew exactly what Epstein was going to do to those children when she sent them inside those massage rooms," Pomerantz added.
"She knew exactly what was going to happen. The defendant was essential to this scheme. As an adult woman, she was able to provide a cover of respectability for Mr Epstein that enabled her to draw these young girls and their families into a sense of security."
Attorneys added that she also allegedly had "group sexual encounters" with the girls between 1994 and 1997.
Maxwell is charged with six counts alleging that she recruited, groomed, and abused four underage girls between 1994 and 2004, in both the US and UK. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
According to The Times, she faces 80 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.
Published 13:26 06 Jan 2022 GMT
Ghislaine Maxwell could file for a mistrial after a juror revealed he used his own experience of childhood sexual abuse to sway deliberations, experts believe.
Juror Scotty David told Reuters that he only opened up about his own abuse during deliberations when others questioned the credibility of two of the women testifying against Jeffrey Epstein's madam.
He recently told Independent that the room went silent when he detailed his past, telling them that — like the witnesses — he could only remember some of the details.
He also told jurors how he’d waited until high school before telling anyone about his abuse, in an effort to justify why the witnesses may not have come forward earlier.
David admitted in both interviews that his confession influenced the deliberations that saw Maxwell convicted and facing up to 65 years in prison.
"When I shared that, they were able to sort of come around on, they were able to come around on the memory aspect of the sexual abuse," he told Reuters.
The 60-year-old, who was labeled "dangerous" by the prosecution, faces the rest of her life in jail for helping to entice vulnerable teenagers to Epstein's various properties for him to sexually abuse between 1994 and 2004.
Maxwell 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.
She was acquitted on the charge of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, per BBC News.
During jury selection, some 230 prospective jurors were given questionnaires asking, among other things, if they or anyone in their families had experienced sexual abuse, court records show.
If they marked yes, they then had to say if that would affect their "ability to serve fairly and impartially."
David told Reuters told that he "flew through" the questionnaire and cannot remember being asked about personal experiences with sexual abuse.
If he failed to reveal it, it could be used as grounds to call for a mistrial for Maxwell, whose legal team has already stated plans to appeal the conviction.
It "could definitely be an issue," former New York federal prosecutor Moira Penza told the Telegraph.
"I certainly hope the juror disclosed this fully on his questionnaire. A little strange the defense didn’t strike him. In the first instance, it would likely form the basis for a motion to Judge [Alison] Nathan for a new trial," she added.
Published 11:59 14 Nov 2021 GMT
Ghislaine Maxwell blew kisses to her family as she appeared in court for jury selection ahead of a trial on charges of grooming underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell, 59, is accused of helping arrange for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to abuse underage girls as young as 14, which she denies.
The former socialite appeared wearing a blue prison tunic, baggy trousers, and black mask, but without the shackles worn in previous appearances.
She used reading glasses as she took notes during the hearing. At one point, Maxwell blew a kiss to her sister who was sitting in court.
Maxwell this week lost her bid to exclude a psychologist who has studied the "grooming" of sexual crimes victims from testifying at her upcoming trial.
Prosecutors have said they may call Lisa Rocchio, a psychologist who specializes in treating patients who have suffered sexual abuse, as a witness at the trial.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to charges that she groomed underage girls for the late financier Epstein to abuse.
It comes as the former socialite was denied bail for the sixth time as she awaits her trial for charges of sex trafficking, The Times reports.
The decision to keep her behind bars was made amid claims by her legal team that she is being treated like "Hannibal Lecter", the fictional cannibalistic serial killer from the movie Silence of the Lambs.
According to the paper, Maxwell's lawyer David Oscar Markus told the court earlier on in the year: "Though she is a model prisoner who poses no danger to society and has done literally nothing to prompt 'special' treatment, she is kept in isolation."
Markus continued: "Conditions fitting for Hannibal Lecter but not a 59-year-old woman who poses no threat to anyone. She is subjected to multiple invasive searches every day. Her every movement is captured on multiple video cameras. She is deprived of any real sleep by having a flashlight pointed into her cell every 15 minutes."
In response to the claims of poor treatment, District Judge Alison Nathan has promised in a recent ruling that the 59-year-old would be taken from her jail cell to her trial "in a way that is humane, proper, and consistent with security protocols".
It was previously reported by Reuters that the reason she has repeatedly been denied bail is due to concerns that she might flee and refuse to cooperate with authorities.
Epstein committed suicide by hanging in his jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited, also without the chance of bail, his trial on sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell's trial is set to begin on November 29.
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