Breaking: Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted on five of six charges, with a second trial on two perjury charges set to occur separately. The 60-year-old faces decades in prison
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images A federal jury on Wednesday found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of operating a sex-trafficking ring with her late boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, capping a decades-long effort to bring the two to justice for victimizing dozens of girls as young as 14.
Even after Epstein emerged from a lenient state jail term as a registered sex offender, his elite friends helped prop him up, appearing to turn the other way regarding his sexual relationships with teenage girls. Epstein organized a science event with Stephen Hawking, attended a tech dinner with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
The jury heard testimony from four alleged victims, three of whom testified using pseudonyms or only their first names. All recalled meeting Epstein and Maxwell as young teenagers, at times when their families were stretched financially or had a single or sick parent. Maxwell, an older, educated, and stylish woman with a clipped British accent connoting sophistication, would befriend them, prosecutors said, coaxing them into situations where Epstein could prey on them.
Several of the charges against Maxwell concerned interstate travel, and Jane testified that Epstein and Maxwell brought her on his private planes to his homes in New York City and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and that Epstein, sometimes with Maxwell present, would sexually abuse her at those locations, too.
After Maxwell’s lawyers suggested that Kate had memory lapses due to drug use, she told the jury that her memories regarding Epstein and Maxwell were clear because she was “terrified and frozen.” Carolyn told the jury that she gave Epstein massages that often escalated into sexual encounters, and that twice another girl entered the massage room while she was there, and Epstein had intercourse with the girl while she performed oral sex on Carolyn.
One of Epstein’s pilots told the jury that when he first met Maxwell, she lived in a large apartment at 59th street and Columbus Circle. After her father died in 1991, she moved to a significantly smaller apartment, the pilot recalled. Eventually, though, during the years she became closer and closer with Epstein, she abandoned the smaller apartment for a spacious townhouse on the Upper East Side, not far from Epstein’s mansion.
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