Predator or victim: Prosecutors, defense paint contrasting portraits of Ghislaine Maxwell
A federal jury began its deliberations late Monday on the fate of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is charged with helping New York financier Jeffrey Epstein prey upon, groom and sexually abuse multiple girls between 1994 and 2004.
Closing arguments in the three-week case lasted nearly six grueling hours, and at least one of the jurors appeared to be dozing off during the afternoon session. The 12-member panel must weigh six different criminal counts, the most serious of which is sex trafficking of minors, which carries a sentence of up to 40 years in prison.
The jury deliberated for an hour Monday but broke for the day at 5:30 p.m. and will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Maxwell, 59, was stoic during closing arguments — her face mostly hidden behind a black mask, her dark eyes betraying little emotion as she fidgeted with papers while listening to Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe describe her as a diabolical accomplice to Epstein’s decades-long sex pyramid scheme.
Four of Maxwell’s siblings, Kevin, Ian, Isabel and Christine, sat behind her in the front row at the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in Manhattan.
In her closing argument, Moe adroitly stitched together a narrative that connected the accusers, witnesses and evidence to help the jury fully understand the pivotal role Maxwell allegedly played in fulfilling Epstein’s desire for young girls.
“Ghislaine Maxwell was dangerous. She was a grown woman who preyed upon children, a sophisticated predator who knew what she was doing,” Moe said.
“She caused deep and lasting harm to young girls. It’s time to hold her accountable.”
She described how Maxwell used a “playbook” in which she presented herself as a posh, sophisticated woman who was able to make the girls feel at ease. She said Maxwell targeted specific victims who had single or drug-addicted mothers struggling financially. Maxwell and Epstein gave the girls money or gifts in exchange for “massages” that were a ruse for him and others to sexually assault girls at his various homes in Palm Beach, New York and New Mexico, Moe added.
“Maxwell made this kind of behavior normal and casual,’’ Moe said.
Maxwell enjoyed the spoils of Epstein’s wealth, and was paid handsomely for her work. Epstein transferred $30 million into Maxwell’s bank account during the years that she was recruiting young girls for him to abuse, Moe told the jury, citing bank records.
But the case really comes down to whether the jury will believe the four women who have accused Maxwell of helping, and at times, participating in Epstein’s abuse. Two of the women, Jane and Carolyn -- said they were 14 when they were assaulted; Kate was 17 and a fourth, Annie Farmer, was 16. (Jane, Kate and Carolyn used pseudonyms to protect their identities).
A lawyer for Maxwell, Laura Menninger, spent the better part of her closing argument trying to tear apart the accusers, portraying them as drug users and liars who named Maxwell only because they wanted to cash in on a victims’ compensation fund set up by Epstein’s estate.
(The financier died after hanging himself in jail while awaiting trial on similar sex-trafficking charges in 2019.)
“The stories relied on by the government are the product of erroneous memories, manipulation and money. In this case, the order is reversed: The money brought the accusers to the FBI, where the personal injury lawyers sat right next to them,” Menninger said.
She scoffed at the prosecution’s case, calling one witness — Epstein’s houseman — “a two-time burglar with an ax to grind.”
Maxwell was portrayed as a “Cruella de Vil and Devil wears Prada all rolled into one,” without any proof that she knew that Epstein was abusing anyone, Menninger said.
“You heard from the government that Ghislaine was Epstein’s right-hand woman; that she controlled
everything in his life; she knew everything, she saw everything, she did everything, she’s to blame for his sins.
That’s not what the evidence showed,” Menninger said.
“Everyone knew that Jeffrey Epstein was keeping secrets from Ghislaine — except for Ghislaine,” she said, suggesting that Maxwell was also manipulated by Epstein.
She pointed to inconsistencies in the victims’ testimony — and how their memories of what happened had changed over time, something that experts say often happens with victims of sexual assault.
Maxwell’s crime is one of guilt by association, Menninger said.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein; she is being tried here because she was with Jeffrey Epstein,” Menninger said. “Maybe that was her biggest mistake but that’s not a crime.”
But in a savage rebuttal, prosecutor Maurene Comey used an analogy about Thanksgiving to show how the details of certain events, such as the day and time, fade, but the memory of the event itself — in this case the sexual abuse — never goes away.
“Difficulty remembering certain things doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” said Comey. “Carolyn remembers Maxwell as a fixture of her experiences at Epstein’s Palm Beach house, like the stuffing on Thanksgiving -- there every time.”
Comey reminded the jury that it was Maxwell who was on trial -- not Epstein.
“This case is about that woman, it’s about the children that she targeted, the steps that she took to serve those children up to be abused. It’s about her own participation in that abuse when she touched Jane’s breasts and Carolyn’s breasts and Annie’s breasts. This case is about Ghislaine Maxwell, the crimes she committed.”
Comey stressed that if the accusers are liars, then all the witnesses who corroborated portions of their stories also conspired to lie — even though many of them didn’t even know each other.
“In order for the defense to be right, for the defendant not to have known about the abuse, for the defendant not to have participated in it, witness after witness after witness must have lied to you. Jane and Kate and Carolyn and Annie must have just stacked lie on top of lie on top of lie. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Perhaps the biggest miscalculation Maxwell made is that she underestimated the girls she groomed, Comey said.
“In her eyes they were just trash. They were beneath her,” Comey said, her voice strong and loud. “She didn’t count on those teenage girls growing up into the women who testified at this trial; women who would be willing to take that stand and tell the truth about what happened. The defendant didn’t count on all four of them coming forward in an avalanche of evidence.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2021 at 9:11 PM.
