Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty, faces prospect of decades in prison
For almost 15 years, victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had been called prostitutes, had been lied to by prosecutors, had been viciously attacked by defense lawyers and were traumatized over and over by a system of justice that catered to the wealthy and politically connected couple who had assaulted them as teenagers.
On Wednesday, the victims were finally believed.
Maxwell, 60, was found guilty Wednesday in federal court of recruiting and trafficking minor girls to be sexually assaulted by her companion, Epstein, a New York financier who escaped federal prosecution in Florida when his crimes there were first investigated in 2007.
A Manhattan jury found Maxwell guilty of five of the six counts she faced, including a sex-trafficking charge that carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. Taken together, the five charges carry a maximum penalty of 65 years behind bars. The verdict came after 40 hours of deliberation over six days — and in the midst of a COVID outbreak in New York that could have led to a mistrial.
Maxwell, wearing a black mask and dark purple sweater, avoided eye contact with the jurors as they filed into the courtroom shortly after 5 o’clock, hours after indicating that they still had work to do and might have to continue deliberations through the holiday weekend.
When U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan read the verdict, Maxwell appeared shaken, and struggled to stand. She did not shed a tear. Afterward, she slumped in her chair and sipped a cup of water, barely looking at her family members — sisters Isabel and Christine and brother Kevin, sitting in the front row.
One of her lawyers, Jeffrey Pagliuca, rested his arm briefly around her shoulders before she stood and was led out of the courtroom by federal marshals.
Absent from the room were any of the four women who testified in the trial — or any of the dozens of other women who say Epstein abused them as girls. One of Epstein and Maxwell’s accusers, Elizabeth Stein, had been denied access to the main courtroom earlier in the day and wound up going back home to Philadelphia rather than staying at the courthouse.
“I think it’s a shame that we weren’t represented at all by anyone,” she said. “How does that happen?”
Annie Farmer, one of the four women who testified at the trial, expressed relief and gratitude at the verdict.
“She has caused hurt to many more women than the few of us who had the chance to testify in the courtroom,” Farmer said in a statement. “I hope that this verdict brings solace to all who need it and demonstrates that no one is above the law.”
Prosecutors alleged that Maxwell, the daughter of the late British publishing mogul Robert Maxwell, was a central figure in Epstein’s sex crimes, helping him recruit and sexually abuse girls in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, hailed the verdict and thanked the women for testifying.
“The road to justice has been far too long,” Williams said in a statement. “But, today, justice has been done.”
Epstein’s death in federal custody in August 2019 had denied victims an earlier opportunity to seek justice.
“My soul yearned for justice for years and today the jury gave me just that,” said Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Maxwell and Epstein’s most prominent accusers, in a statement.
“Having lived with the horrors of Maxwell’s abuse, my heart goes out to the many other girls and young women who suffered at her hands and whose lives she destroyed.”
Maxwell’s defense team pointed to inconsistencies in versions of their stories that the victims had told over the years and argued that the women testifying were motivated by financial considerations, and participated in the trial to bolster their claims to a fund established for victims of Epstein and in civil lawsuits, which the women forcefully denied.
“Money will never fix what that woman did to me,” one of the victims, “Carolyn,” cried out in response to questioning by one of Maxwell’s lawyers during the trial. “What she did was wrong and she picked vulnerable young girls and trafficked them.”
Maxwell’s family issued a statement following the verdict, and said it was planning to appeal
“We believe firmly in our sister’s innocence — we are very disappointed with the verdict. We have already started the appeal tonight and we believe that she will ultimately be vindicated.”
Maxwell was once a fixture on the New York social scene who possessed a Rolodex of names and direct phone numbers to former presidents, world leaders, billionaires and celebrities. She was also for years Epstein’s girlfriend and, according to testimony, managed his household in Palm Beach and other locales where the multimillionaire maintained estates.
At least two women have claimed that they were trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to powerful and wealthy men, including Prince Andrew, former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Federal prosecutors purposefully seemed to steer the case around the potential minefield of identifying figures they referred to as “third parties” who were in Epstein’s orbit. All the men have denied the allegations.
David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, said the verdict shows that prosecutors were right not to focus on these other figures.
“The government’s decision to streamline their case was the right choice,” he said.
Like Epstein, Maxwell hired a team of defense lawyers who filed a flurry of legal motions focused on undermining the credibility of the accusers and portraying them as prostitutes.
“Depending on the age of the accusers during the time frame of the conspiracy, consent may be an appropriate and viable defense,’’ Maxwell’s attorneys said in one motion, noting that in Florida at the time the crimes were allegedly committed, “individuals under the age of 18 could be charged with commission of the crime of prostitution.”
Michael Reiter, the former Palm Beach police chief who oversaw the earlier 2005-08 case against Epstein, said the verdict should send a message to everyone in the criminal justice system.
“In 2005, early in our investigation, the Palm Beach Police Department recognized the importance of stopping Jeffrey Epstein and bringing him to justice. The department never bent to the power and influence brought to bear against us.,” Reiter said.
“Now that the courts have spoken, I hope and pray that the professionals in our justice system learn from this case. Law school professors should teach this case in legal ethics courses as an example of how not to treat victims of sex crimes and as a forewarning to prosecutors on how they can be influenced to fail in their duties to both victims and the public.”
Maxwell’s verdict comes three years after the publication of “Perversion of Justice,” a Miami Herald investigation that told in vivid detail how Epstein and his team of high-profile attorneys manipulated the criminal justice system more than a decade earlier allowing him to escape federal prosecution. It told the stories of the girls, now women, and how they were coping years after their encounters with Epstein.
Despite the fact that the FBI had evidence he sexually abused at least 34 girls, Epstein served just 13 months in the Palm Beach county jail on charges that he solicited one minor.
The Herald’s series led federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to take a new look at the case, and Epstein was arrested in July 2019. In the ensuing fallout from the Herald series, the prosecutor in charge of the 2005 case, Alexander Acosta, resigned as secretary of labor under then-president Donald Trump. Several CEOs who associated with Epstein have retired or stepped down from their companies.
While awaiting trial in his case, Epstein was found dead by hanging in his New York City cell. The death was ruled a suicide.
Michelle Licata, the first victim interviewed for the Herald series, said Maxwell’s verdict provided some closure. ”This has been going on for a really long time in my life. For me, I feel like there’s a chapter that can finally be closed,” she said. “I never got the closure with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Despite Epstein’s death, the federal probe into his alleged crimes continued, and in July 2020, Maxwell was arrested at a 156-acre home in rural New Hampshire that had been purchased months earlier through an anonymous shell company. Maxwell had toured the home under a pseudonym.
Jill Steinberg, a former assistant U.S. attorney and Justice Department official who handled cases of child exploitation, said the trial highlighted an important truth about sexual predators.
“They are not who you think they are,” she said. “They come from all walks of life. They appear to be law-abiding citizens — even affluent, highly successful individuals with their own families.”
Stein, who had been denied entrance to the courtroom on the final day, said she hoped the verdict would allow Maxwell and Epstein’s victims to be seen in a new light.
“I hope that the public sees us now as victors rather than victims because we got what we were hoping for in the verdict,” she said.
This story was originally published December 29, 2021 at 5:20 PM.
