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.
