The Mail on Sunday has the exclusive scoop: Ghislaine Maxwell, a child sex dealer and prisoner, is studying Russian behind bars.
The 60-year-old disgraced British socialite, whose lawyers launched an appeal for a retrial last week, is fluent in three other languages – French, Italian and Spanish – but is studying Russian ‘to maintain her sanity’.
Maxwell, who was found guilty last month of five counts of child sex trafficking and faces up to 65 years in jail when she is sentenced in June, is in solitary confinement at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Centre.
She’s on suicide watch and allowed to wear only paper clothing. Books are not permitted.
‘She can’t even have a pen and paper,’ an insider said.
‘The conditions are appalling. She’s checked every 15 minutes throughout the day and night.
Convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell is learning Russian while in solitary confinement at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Centre, The Mail on Sunday can reveal
Ghislaine Minwell was convicted in 2015 of recruiting girls as paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. She committed suicide in 2019, after which he was photographed together.
‘They shine a flashlight into her cell all night which makes it impossible to sleep.’
She is allowed to use her laptop for just a few hours per day by the prison governor in order to study Russian with a CD course.
The source added: ‘It’s helping her to keep her mind focused. Studying is helping maintain her sanity.’
Maxwell was convicted in 1999 of recruiting girl for Jeffrey Epstein, a paedophile financier. He died in 2019 in prison.
Her lawyers claim she was prosecuted ‘by proxy’ for his crimes, and want a retrial after two jurors admitted using their own experience of being sexually abused to sway other jurors.