The latest developments
Jeffrey Epstein is dead, his sexual abuse of minors is still under trial – against his former lover Ghislaine Maxwell. The process started at the end of November.
A court drawing shows the witness (back right) crying.
The latest developments
- The jury has reached a verdict in the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is charged on six counts for colluding with Epstein between 1994 and 2004 and allegedly assisting him in his sexual abuse of underage girls. Since her arrest in July 2020, she has been held without bail and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The jury found Maxwell guilty on five out of six counts. The jury found Maxwell not guilty on the second count: seducing a minor under the age of 17 to travel with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity on her. The 60-year-old is now facing a longer prison sentence – Judge Alison Nathan will fix the sentence at a later date. Maxwell had always denied the allegations and refrained from making a statement during the trial.
- After Ghislaine Maxwell spent Christmas and her 60th birthday in custody, the trial of her involvement in the sexual abuse of minors continued on Monday (December 27th). Epstein’s former partner is said to have recruited several girls for the investment banker, including a 14-year-old who used the pseudonym Jane in court. The jury focused on Monday (December 27th) on the testimony of Epstein’s personal pilot who stated that underage girls were flown to Epstein’s various properties. Jane said the sexual abuse meetings with Epstein and Maxwell often took place at Epstein’s Palm Beach property, but she was flown to New Mexico and New York for the same purpose.
- At the end of the trial of the former partner of millionaire Jeffrey Epstein, the prosecution has again brought serious allegations of sexual abuse. The closing arguments began after just three weeks. Maxwell was “dangerous” and a “sophisticated sex offender,” said prosecutor Alison Moe on Monday (December 20th) in New York, according to American media reports, in her closing speech. “She manipulated her victims and prepared them for sexual abuse,” quoted the New York Times as saying the prosecutor. Maxwell appeared “smart” and “smiling” and thus lured the alleged victims, who often came from problematic backgrounds, into a trap. The defense attorneys, however, portrayed Maxwell as “an innocent woman”. They had presented the case from the start as a legal settlement with their client, since the prosecution could no longer prosecute Epstein itself. The 66-year-old allegedly committed suicide while preparing for his abuse trial in August 2019.
- Ghislaine Maxwell will not testify in court. This was announced by the defendant on Friday (December 17th). She therefore refrains from making a statement in her own defense and continues to plead “not guilty”. By not making a statement in court, Maxwell also escapes questions from the plaintiff’s attorneys.
In 2019, American investment banker Jeffrey Epstein was charged with prostitution, human trafficking and the multiple rape of minors. He is said to have molested dozens of girls and made them available to his friends. Between 2002 and 2005, Epstein is said to have built a sex slave ring with minors in the American states of New York and Florida. A pyramid scheme is said to have ensured a steady supply of girls. At least 80 of the victims, so it is in the investigation files, are said to have been 14 years or younger at the time of the act.
The allegations against Epstein weren’t new; in 2008, he was charged in Florida state on almost identical charges. At the time, however, his relationships apparently helped him avoid a long prison sentence. He was sentenced to only 13 months in prison. As in 2008, Epstein pleaded not guilty in 2019. If the case had been reopened and he had been found guilty, he would face a prison sentence of up to 45 years.
On August 10, 2019, Epstein was found dead in his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. According to official sources, he committed suicide at the age of 66. After his death, however, conspiracy theories spread that Epstein had received help in suicide or was possibly even killed. It is therefore now assumed that Epstein’s suicide was made possible due to the lax arrangements in New York prison.
As a result, Ghislaine Maxwell came into the focus of investigators and the public, and she was finally arrested last year. The public prosecutor accuses her of having been Epstein’s “right hand man” and his most important accomplice in his abuse ring.
The 59-year-old Ghislaine Maxwell is likely to have played a key role in Jeffrey Epstein’s life: She is an alleged accomplice of the abuses. Maxwell is said to have fed new girls to Epstein for years by luring them to Epstein and Maxwell’s joint estate on the pretext of hiring them for massages.
Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell at a Wall Street fundraiser in 2005.
The indictment said the 59-year-old facilitated Epstein’s abuse “by talking to victims about sexual issues, encouraging them to massage Epstein and undressing in front of a victim.” She was also present at “certain sexual encounters between underage victims and Epstein”.
Annie Farmer, the fourth and final lead witness on the prosecution, incriminated Maxwell herself as the perpetrator at the trial. Farmer was the only plaintiff to date to appear in court using her full name. The attack happened in 1995 on Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, reported Farmer. She assumed that the couple wanted to advise her on her college plans. Instead, after the couple took her to the shops and to the movies, Maxwell asked her to give her a massage. “But on the massage table she pulled the towel away from me and began to rub against my breasts,” Farmer told the court. “How old were they?” Asked the prosecutor. “I was 16 years old.” The next day, Epstein also sexually assaulted her.
The trial concerns allegations from the years 1994 to 2004. The four victims accuse Maxwell of, among other things, sex trafficking with minors, seduction into illegal sex acts and perjury. Maxwell is charged on eight counts and faces many years in prison if convicted. However, the two charges of perjury will not be heard until a later date.
The defense vehemently denies the charges. It’s about Epstein’s crimes that Maxwell has nothing to do with. “She’s not like Jeffrey Epstein,” said Maxwell’s lawyer. This was a “narcissistic man” and manipulated the world around him – including Maxwell himself.
Maxwell is the daughter of the late London publisher Robert Maxwell. She came to New York in the early 1990s, where she met Epstein. The two became lovers and are said to have remained friends afterwards. After Epstein’s arrest and suicide last summer, Maxwell went into hiding in various locations in New England – until she was finally arrested in July 2020.
According to trial statements by David Rodgers, a former Epstein pilot, greed for money may have been a possible motive for Maxwell’s involvement in the abuse of minors. In 1991, after the death of her financially troubled father, she “dived” into a studio apartment in Manhattan. Within less than a decade, however, Maxwell was living in her own five-story townhouse on the Upper East Side, which was “maybe 7,000 square feet.” One of the abused accusers testified shortly before Rodgers that Maxwell bragged about owning her own New York City home, which Epstein had found for her.
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Born in 1953, Jeffrey Epstein spent most of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York. After finishing his mathematics studies without a degree, he first worked as a math teacher before joining the investment bank Bear Stearns as a punter in 1976. There he became a member of the management in 1980. Two years later he founded his own wealth management company with J. Epstein & Co., specialized in investments for billionaires and made a lot of money himself. His customers included Leslie Wexner, the owner of the well-known women’s underwear chain Victoria’s Secret.
Although Epstein has often been referred to as a billionaire in the media, the size of his fortune was unknown. The American magazine “Forbes” did not list him as a billionaire. Nevertheless, Epstein’s fortune was immense: In addition to a villa in Florida, he owned a ranch in New Mexico, an apartment in Paris, two private jets and one of the Virgin Islands.
Epstein’s activity as a hedge fund manager was his key to the world of the rich and famous: Epstein celebrated lavish parties in villas, loved the company of beautiful, mostly young women, and liked to surround himself with the rich and powerful. His friends included ex-President Bill Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey and the British Prince Andrew.
Against the latter was a few years ago the accusation was also loud Getting to minors for sex through Epstein. This accusation is rejected by both Andrew and Buckingham Palace to this day. A civil sexual abuse lawsuit was filed against Andrew in the United States in August 2021. The plaintiff is the Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. She accuses the prince of having sexually abused her several times in 2001 at the age of 17.
Former American President Donald Trump once raved about Epstein. Opposite the magazine «New York» Trump declared in 2002 that he had known Epstein for many years and that it was very funny in his presence. Epstein is a great guy. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do. And many of them are more of the younger sort. ”