Lengthy earlier than daybreak on Monday morning, Ghislaine Maxwell will probably be taken out of her 6ft by 9ft cell at Brooklyn’s bleak Metropolitan Detention Centre for a day the British socialite has lengthy fought desperately to keep away from.
In her blue jail uniform, shackled by her fingers and toes, she will probably be ushered right into a white Division of Corrections jail van for the six-mile journey by means of Brooklyn, throughout the East River and on to a downtown Manhattan court docket.
The route presents a nice view of the Statue of Liberty and may she catch a glimpse of it by means of the window grilles, its welcome to the world’s ‘huddled plenty’ could now ring hole for this specific immigrant.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein affiliate accused of intercourse trafficking, is led into court docket in shackles for a pre-trial listening to forward of jury choice, anticipated to start later within the week
Thirty years after she moved to the US following the dying of her father Robert Maxwell – the newspaper writer who plundered tens of millions from his firms’ pension funds – and tirelessly labored to reinvent herself, she faces expenses that would see the American Dream finish for her in a most 80-year sentence.
When she arrives on the courthouse in Foley Sq. on Monday, going through expenses over allegedly serving to her super-rich pal Jeffrey Epstein groom and sexually abuse underage women, she will probably be transferred to a holding cell earlier than being led to a courtroom reserved for high-profile trials.
So what can we count on within the coming weeks? And, above all, will Prince Andrew – who she launched to Epstein – be dragged into the case? Right here is our step-by-step information to what many predict will probably be one of many trials of the century.
What are the costs?
Maxwell faces six expenses, together with enticement of minors, intercourse trafficking of youngsters, and perjury. From 1994 to 2004, she allegedly ‘assisted, facilitated and contributed’ to Epstein’s abuse of youngsters as younger as 14. She denies the entire expenses.
The accusers
A minimum of 4 ladies will testify in opposition to Maxwell, one in every of whom is known to be British. All however one in every of them is having her anonymity protected by the choose however they’ll give proof in full view of the court docket and press gallery.
The witness who has given up her proper to anonymity is American psychologist Annie Farmer. She has already alleged Maxwell and Epstein sexually abused her when she was 16 whereas she was at his New Mexico mansion in 1996.
Ghislaine Maxwell (proper), the British socialite and heiress, was been arrested by the FBI accused of being intercourse abuser Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘pimp’
Annie says that, having turn into her ‘massive sister’ determine, Maxwell repeatedly requested if she wished a therapeutic massage. After lastly giving in, she ended up mendacity on her again topless as Maxwell massaged her chest in an ‘inappropriate’ approach. She sensed Epstein was close by, watching, and says he later got here into her bed room and requested for a ‘cuddle’, earlier than crawling into mattress and sexually assaulting her.
Ms Farmer, who has described Maxwell as a ‘sexual predator’ who has ‘by no means proven any regret for her heinous crimes’, has made clear she would by no means have gotten into such a place if Maxwell hadn’t earned her belief.
The unidentified British accuser had beforehand alleged that Maxwell recruited her in London in 1994 to therapeutic massage Epstein realizing that he’d pressure her to have intercourse. Nevertheless, she was 17 on the time – above the UK’s age of consent – prompting Maxwell’s legal professionals to problem whether or not she might be thought of a ‘sufferer’. This matter stays unresolved.
Prosecutors have mentioned they count on a number of different ladies to testify, offering supporting proof.
Will they embrace Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, who claims she was recruited by Maxwell after which sexually trafficked to Prince Andrew, an allegation he strenuously denies? Whereas Maxwell has insisted she’s a scapegoat, a ‘substitute’ for Epstein who dedicated suicide in his cell whereas awaiting trial in August 2019, her accusers beg to vary, in some instances saying that they regard her, a fellow girl who they’d usually considered a trusted pal, as much more despicable than Epstein. Though with Epstein useless, her trial will in the end come right down to her phrase in opposition to theirs, key questions stay – notably, how a lot mud will Maxwell attempt to sling at her accusers?
Who’s who in court docket
The choose
Alison Nathan, a former affiliate White Home counsel for President Barack Obama, sits as a district choose for the Southern District of New York. She is barely the second overtly homosexual federal choose within the US and is married to Meg Satterthwaite, a fellow professor at New York College’s College of Legislation. They’ve twin sons.
The prosecutors
Maxwell is up in opposition to the formidable US Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York, with a workforce of prosecutors who’ve pulled off many groundbreaking and historic instances.
Maxwell’s authorized workforce:
She has revealed in court docket papers that she has put aside a hefty $7million (£5.2million) to pay for authorized prices. Her workforce consists of two battle-hardened attorneys from worldwide regulation agency Cohen & Gresser. Christian Everdell is a former federal prosecutor who helped convey down Sinaloa drug kingpin Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, a feat for which he was given a True American Hero Award.
Cohen & Gresser’s co-founder, Mark S Cohen, is one other ex-federal prosecutor whose scalps embrace mob killer Thomas ‘Tommy Karate’ Pitera. They are going to be working alongside a pair of Denver-based legal professionals: Jeffrey Pagliuca and Laura Menninger,
Pagliuca is an award-winning trial lawyer, with greater than 35 years of expertise, whereas Menninger labored for Goldman Sachs as a monetary analyst, earlier than leaving to work as a public defender.
The workforce consists of ‘tremendous lawyer’ Bobbi Sternheim, who has defended terrorists together with Minh Quang Pham, who was jailed for plotting to explode Heathrow in 2016. Maxwell has additionally referred to as on the rottweiler-like David Markus, a Miami lawyer who as soon as obtained a physician off 141 federal expenses and received prices of over $600,000.
Maxwell revealed in court docket papers that she has put aside a hefty $7million (£5.2million) to pay for authorized prices
Jury choice
The method begins on Monday with the primary face-to-face questioning by legal professionals of some 60 potential jurors, who’ve been whittled down from an preliminary pool of 600. Maxwell has lengthy complained she is now so infamous she will by no means have a good trial and her authorized workforce is leaving little to likelihood.
They’ve revealed they even wish to ask potential jurors if they’ve robust views about individuals who have ‘luxurious existence’.
What’s her technique?
For prosecutors, a failure to convict Maxwell after Epstein denied his accusers their day in court docket can be breathtakingly embarrassing. In the intervening time, issues are going their approach. The accused has already misplaced a collection of key rulings, with the choose permitting her accusers to be known as ‘victims’ and to be given pseudonyms to guard them from harassment.
Provided that the MeToo Motion has fuelled sympathy for ladies who say they’ve been abused, Maxwell’s legal professionals appear reluctant to easily dismiss them as liars. And so Maxwell plans to problem the reminiscence of her accusers, saying they had been merely mistaken. Her legal professionals may even query the witnesses’ credibility based mostly on alleged substance abuse or failure to reveal their accusations promptly.
Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist, will testify for the defence about ‘false reminiscences’ of sexual abuse that individuals can describe with ‘confidence, element and emotion’ with out intentionally mendacity.
The prosecution will counter by placing up Lisa Rocchio, a psychologist and sexual abuse specialist, who will testify that adolescents are significantly more likely to disclose sexual abuse later in life and that false allegations symbolize a ‘very small minority’ of accusations.
However the defence has one other knowledgeable up its sleeve, forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz. He’ll argue that Maxwell’s try and win Epstein’s victims’ belief did not mechanically imply she supposed them to be abused.
A few of her accusers have lengthy suspected that Maxwell would attempt to painting herself as one in every of Epstein’s victims – a chance, they mentioned, that stuffed them with specific disgust.
There had been little proof she would possibly do that, till it emerged this week that prosecutors had objected to Dietz’s proposed testimony about Epstein’s so-called ‘halo impact’, a high quality that enabled him to ‘use his brilliance to control individuals to do his bidding’.
The prosecution is searching for to exclude this testimony on the grounds it’s designed to ‘engender sympathy’ for Maxwell.
What about Andrew?
A technique for Maxwell to elicit sympathy from the jury can be to take the witness stand. However it is a high-risk technique as it might expose her to questioning underneath oath on an space that she has beforehand studiously prevented: what she is aware of about Epstein’s mates, significantly Prince Andrew, and any sexual misconduct.
In a 2016 deposition she was significantly evasive in regards to the prince and dismissed Virginia Giuffre’s claims as a ’tissue of lies’. In the meantime, there’s nothing to cease the prosecution and its witnesses mentioning Andrew independently. Mark Geragos, one in every of America’s greatest recognized celeb defence legal professionals, instructed the Mail he thought the prince’s identify might be introduced up within the trial – one of many causes he believes Maxwell will not testify.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein affiliate accused of intercourse trafficking, sits earlier than U.S. District Choose Alison J. Nathan throughout a pretrial listening to
‘That is the peril of placing her on the stand,’ he mentioned. ‘As soon as she’s there, she can not say ‘No, I am not going to reply’.’
How is her morale?
Whereas the Maxwell camp insist she’s mentally robust, undaunted and satisfied of her innocence, they are saying her incarceration within the Metropolitan Detention Centre – which a household pal this week in comparison with a ‘medieval jail’ – has taken a bodily toll.
Her hair is falling out and he or she is losing a few pounds, in addition to having bother along with her eyesight and skill to pay attention, they are saying.
She has lengthy claimed that the detention centre employees mentally and bodily abuse her, waking her each quarter-hour by shining a light-weight in her face, looking her excessively and feeding her meals so overcooked the microwave has melted the plastic on to the meals.
Her cell, she claims, is stuffed with the stench of overflowing bathrooms a ground above and uncooked sewage has generally leaked into it. Based on Maxwell, this all provides as much as a acutely aware try by the authorities to make sure she’s unprepared for her trial.
Whereas jail officers say the shut monitoring is meant to guard her from others and cease her harming herself, the Maxwell camp insists that she’s not a suicide danger and by no means has been one.
The best way they see it, her jailers are utilizing the truth that Epstein dedicated suicide in his cell as an excuse to maintain her underneath situations that quantity to ‘torture’. The federal government denies this.
Why has she been behind bars so lengthy?
Maxwell has been on remand since shortly after her arrest in July 2020. Her brother Ian claims that she is being held in a tiny cell with a concrete mattress, a bathroom and a sink that runs undrinkable brown water, which has no pure mild. There she is underneath 24-hour surveillance by 4 guards and ten cameras together with one which tracks her actions.
The grimness of her residing situations has lower little ice with Choose Nathan, nonetheless. She has turned down 4 functions for bail up to now on the grounds that Maxwell – who had proposed a $28.5million (£21million) bail deal – has not been sincere about how a lot cash she has and is a flight danger.
It is exhausting to argue with the second level given Maxwell’s success in going to floor earlier than her arrest. After Epstein’s arrest in 2019, she disappeared, speaking with courts solely by means of her legal professionals as she grew to become embroiled in varied instances and the FBI made it recognized they had been investigating her.
Its brokers had been solely in a position to lastly observe her down and arrest her in deepest New Hampshire in July 2020 through the use of a hi-tech cell phone monitoring system referred to as a ‘stingray’.
She was despatched straight to jail, with a choose noting her vital monetary assets, possession of a French passport (France has no extradition treaty with the US), and ‘extraordinary capability to keep away from detection’.
Whereas her siblings have been publicly supportive – her sister Isabel, who lives within the US, has usually attended court docket hearings – little has been heard or seen of her husband of 5 years, millionaire tech entrepreneur Scott Borgerson.
His absence could also be Maxwell’s doing – Ian Maxwell has described Mr Borgerson, 44, as ‘off limits’ and mentioned Ghislaine is decided to guard him and his two youngsters from a earlier relationship.
Throughout a bail software, Maxwell revealed that she and Mr Borgerson are price $22.5million though the choose has described her funds as ‘opaque’ and it stays a thriller if she has cash from Epstein.
Given her historical past, she will have had little or no expectation of bail. Opening statements for the trial are scheduled for November 29 and it’s anticipated to final for six weeks – which implies Maxwell can count on to spend her sixtieth birthday, Christmas Day, in jail.