Epstein case: Ghislaine Maxwell, the demon in the skin


Found guilty of complicity in the trafficking of minors, she wants to appeal and remains in prison.

Until the last moment, she thought she was getting out of it. A few hours before the announcement of the verdict, Ghislaine Maxwell smiles in the dock when her lawyer introduces her to a journalist from the American chain ABC. The exchange lasts only a few seconds but it amazes the public, who guesses the rest: an exclusive interview in the event of an acquittal.

Read also:“Christina Oxenberg wanted to restore her part of the truth about Ghislaine Maxwell”

On this morning of December 29, such a scenario seems credible. The twelve jurors have been deliberating for six days and, visibly, have trouble agreeing. They ask for written accounts of the testimonies of accusers yet heard at the bar. They doubt one of them, Jane, who, ill-prepared, contradicted herself. A few days earlier, the defense lawyers gave themselves “high fives” (claps in the hands), as if the length of the deliberations offered them a little hope. They seemed serene and said they were “proud” to defend Ghislaine, this well-behaved client who gave them warm hugs at the end of each hearing. A big family united in adversity. In the audience, in the front row, Isabel, the accused’s older sister, showed her unfailing support. In the evening, after the hearing, we saw her patiently waiting for her taxi, surrounded by journalists who tried, in vain, to extort confidences from her… With her beret, her blue suitcase on wheels and her tortoiseshell glasses that part in the middle , the ex-heiress does not look like much but remained straight in her boots.

Read also:Ghislaine Maxwell, from worldly heiress to alleged accomplice in the trafficking of minors

During the trial, Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers tried to minimize her links with Jeffrey Epstein, whom they describe without complex as “a kind of James Bond of the 21st century”. She herself, during her hearings, maintained the vagueness of their relationship… In 2015, an investigator asked her to qualify her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. “A difficult question”, she answered before admitting that at certain times, in particular “in the early 1990s”, she would have “liked [se] consider as his companion. Maxwell claims to have met him for the first time thanks to a mutual friend, in New York, at the end of 1991. In reality, according to several witnesses, the meeting would have taken place earlier, in London, and it was Robert Maxwell. -even, his father, who died on November 5, 1991 in mysterious conditions, who would have made the presentations in 1988. At least that is what Steven Hoffenberg tells us. This former financier, who spent eighteen years in prison for setting up a Madoff-type scam (a Ponzi scheme), was Epstein’s partner in the 1980s. “Jeffrey and Bob [Robert Maxwell], he says, were doing business together. Bob was spellbound. He wanted his daughter to marry Jeffrey. “By falling in love with this” knighted son-in-law “, Ghislaine would have thus fulfilled the wish of her adored father.

Epstein and Maxwell instead of the Queen and her cousin Margaret Rhodes at Balmoral © Bestimage

But Ghislaine may spend her life in Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion, but she continues to rent an apartment nearby. According to the testimonies collected by Leland Nally, the journalist of “Mother Jones” who peeled the famous “black book” – the address book of Jeffrey Epstein -, the billionaire turns out to be a difficult lover. “Everyone I’ve spoken to describes a toxic, codependent relationship, with jealousies, breakups and reconciliations,” he notes. Annie Farmer, one of four accusers in the trial, who says she was sexually abused at age 16 by Epstein and Maxwell, recalled seeing them ‘arguing and touching like teenagers’ as they all went to three at the cinema.

She plays down her ties to Epstein, witnesses describe toxic relationship

“At one point, Ghislaine even tried to pull her pants down,” she says. But in public, the couple seem mismatched, as if a piece of the puzzle is missing. “She was clearly attracted to him, but physically they were not very demonstrative,” recalls Christopher Mason, an Englishman close to Ghislaine Maxwell at that time. Jeffrey Epstein probably had his head elsewhere, occupied by very young girls… From the height of her 30 years, Ghislaine would be, for the tastes of Epstein, an overmature woman. Already, at that time, some people know. Christopher Mason remembers a strange scene, in 1992 or the following year. “A party was given by Ghislaine for her mother, Betty, passing through New York. She wanted to introduce him to her best friends. We were at Jeffrey’s, but he was away and everyone was talking. I heard people say: “It’s weird, she’s with this guy who seems to prefer schoolgirls to him and she introduces them to him, as if she was ready to do anything to satisfy him.” I thought we were talking about 18-year-old girls, not little girls… ”Ghislaine Maxwell would like to marry Epstein, who would refuse. From various accounts, she understands that the only way to keep him will be to make herself indispensable. Ghislaine Maxwell would thus have become his accomplice.

His dream: to reconnect with his sumptuous lifestyle of yesteryear. Their relationship then changes in nature. From girlfriend, she becomes an employee, in charge of “managing” the various properties of the “boss”. It gradually imposes a strict regulation, detailed on 58 pages and distributed to employees asked to “see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing, unless it is to answer a question”… Epstein is generous in return: in 2000, he bought her a mansion and paid her 30 million dollars in cash, spread over fifteen years.

The massage table where the billionaire abused his young victims.

The massage table where the billionaire abused his young victims. © Abaca

Thanks to her address book, Ghislaine Maxwell opens to Epstein the doors of the jet-set, to which this introverted man would never have had access. It’s not enough. She would also have turned into a harvester of fresh flesh, which she disputes. According to Maria Farmer, receptionist at Epstein’s mansion and older sister of accuser Annie Farmer, Ghislaine Maxwell used to go hunting almost every day after school. “She took the car, direction Central Park, and asked the driver to stop as soon as she saw a profile to her liking. She asked the little girl for her number, promising her a top career at Victoria’s Secret [marque dirigée par Les Wexner, un proche d’Epstein]. Once there, the kids went upstairs. Sometimes it escalated. “I saw one come down in tears,” continues Maria. Ghislaine told me: “She was not admitted to the test. Modeling is tough!” »

Christine, Isabel and Kevin Maxwell leaving federal court in New York on December 29 after their sister's sentencing.  With their brother Ian, they all made the trip.

Christine, Isabel and Kevin Maxwell leaving federal court in New York on December 29 after their sister’s sentencing. With their brother Ian, they all made the trip. © AFP

To put their prey to sleep, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell present themselves, according to the prosecution, as a married couple. On March 14, 2005, a thunderclap: a mother called the Palm Beach police. This is the beginning of the legal troubles. Maxwell decides to drop out, even if the date of the “separation” remains unclear: it evokes sometimes 2006, sometimes 2009. In 2005, according to the “Daily Mail”, a British tabloid, she claimed to want “neither marriage nor children” but appeared with a billionaire, Ted Waitt, co-founder of the IT brand Gateway. Friend of Chelsea Clinton, he invited her to her wedding in 2010. She then marries a certain Scott Borgerson, a multimillionaire entrepreneur who we have just learned that he left her just before the trial. Maxwell was then very lucky: Epstein was convicted, she was spared. His name does not appear in court documents. She still maintains contact with him. In 2015, the press echoed the first public accusations against him. Panic. “You have nothing to reproach yourself for, keep your head up,” advises Epstein. Tactic she chose to adopt during the trial.

She made their prey dangle a career as a model

Four damning testimonies and the dissemination of photographs, however, leave little doubt about their complicity. She retorts boldly that she does not “need to testify”, on the grounds that the prosecution has “not provided proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. Hearing these words, Isabel, her sister, began to pray. The verdict finally falls. Ghislaine Maxwell is found guilty of five charges and not six; the last was about Jane, the accuser with failing memory. Standing up, Ghislaine poured herself a glass of water and took a sip, without the slightest emotion.

In the courtroom, the relief is palpable. In the absence of a major revelation, the victims and their relatives feared that Ghislaine Maxwell would get away with it. Strategists, the prosecutors preferred to settle for four accusers rather than run the risk of turning the trial into a circus. Their goal was to condemn Ghislaine Maxwell, not to bring out the truth. According to Steven Hoffenberg, Epstein’s ex-partner, “75% of the facts remain to be discovered”. The pedophile financier allegedly had compromising videos showing his powerful friends in the company of very young masseuses. “Ghislaine has several times said that she could locate them, notes Hoffenberg. She remains silent for the moment, but she could speak to negotiate the length of her sentence”, which could be up to sixty five years in prison. As for the defense, it announced an appeal. Sentencing is expected to be handed down on January 10. One certainty: the Epstein case is far from over. 

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