Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to keep testimony from Epstein accuser’s suit secret suffers setback
Ghislaine Maxwell’s quest to block the unsealing of her 2016 deposition from a civil suit brought by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged victims was dealt a major blow Wednesday when a federal judge in Maxwell’s criminal case blocked the release of “critical new information” that Maxwell had sought to share as justification for keeping the deposition secret.
Maxwell’s legal team has argued that the deposition should remain under seal so that she can get a fair trial in her criminal case, for which she faces four counts of sexual trafficking of a minor and two counts of perjury.
“But after fourteen single-spaced pages of heated rhetoric, the Defendant proffers no more than vague, speculative, and conclusory assertions as to why that is the case,” U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan wrote in denying the request.
Maxwell, Epstein’s reputed madam, was arrested on July 2 at a 156-acre New Hampshire estate where she had been hiding out. She had toured the property under an assumed name and the property was purchased last December through a shell company. In late July, filings for the shell company were changed to list Maxwell’s longtime friend and Los Angeles lawyer, Leah Saffian.
Maxwell is accused in the criminal case of recruiting and grooming three girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997. In one case, she is alleged to have participated in the abuse herself.
“Maxwell’s presence as an adult woman helped put the victims at ease as Maxwell and Epstein intended,” Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, said in announcing the charges against her at a July news conference.
Maxwell was arrested nearly one year after Epstein faced new sex charges. Epstein has been accused of abusing dozens of girls and the Herald reported on the extraordinarily lenient sentence he received in 2008 in its Perversion of Justice series. The renewed attention to Epstein’s sentence contributed to the new charges and led then-U.S. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who had approved the sentence as the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, to resign from President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center. His death came one day after a trove of documents were released from Maxwell’s civil defamation suit, which was brought against her by Virginia Giuffre in 2015. The documents shed light on Maxwell’s alleged role in recruiting girls and young women for Epstein’s abuse and taking part in the abuse.
Giuffre said that Maxwell recruited her around the time of her 17th birthday when Giuffre was working as a spa assistant at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Giuffre said that in addition to Epstein abusing her, he and Maxwell directed her to have sex with their famous friends, including Prince Andrew, former Sen. George Mitchell and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, among others. The men have all denied the claims. Giuffre said she was directed to have sex with prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz, who previously defended Epstein, a claim which he has also denied. He and Giuffre have sued each other for defamation.
The Maxwell suit was settled in 2017. The Herald, among others, has fought for material from the case to be unsealed. Maxwell’s appeal of a July decision to unseal her deposition will be heard on Sept. 22. Maxwell has argued that release of her deposition and the deposition of an unnamed J. Doe 1 from the Giuffre defamation suit will jeopardize her chances of a fair criminal trial.
The deposition in that case formed the basis for the two perjury charges Maxwell faces in her criminal case. Her lawyers have argued that the deposition was obtained by federal prosecutors in violation of a protective order in the civil case, but federal prosecutors explained in a filing last month, how they had obtained the deposition materials. The prosecutors also said that the federal grand jury investigating Epstein and Maxwell’s alleged crimes is still active and suggested that more charges could be on the horizon related to their activities.
This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 5:37 PM.
