Ghislaine Maxwell makes first public appearance. Her family takes to YouTube to defend her.
.jpg "Ghislaine Maxwell appears in court at her arraignment Friday.")
In her first public appearance since her arrest, Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges during a brief arraignment in federal court on Friday, as her family continued to wage a public relations campaign against the government’s treatment of the 59-year-old British socialite.
Maxwell, who was raised in England and moved to New York in 1991, is accused by federal prosecutors of working for sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, helping him recruit, abuse and traffic teenage girls for sex for more than a decade.
Epstein, 66, a New York financier who also lived in Palm Beach, Florida; Paris and the U.S. Virgin Islands, was arrested on similar sex trafficking charges in July 2019 but died in prison a month later. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
The sex trafficking investigation by New York prosecutors resumed after Epstein’s death, as more victims came forward, one of whom accused Maxwell of abusing her as part of group sex when the accuser was 14.
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 and has remained jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where she has been in solitary confinement. She and her family have bitterly complained about her jail conditions and contend that she has not had the ability to adequately prepare for trial.
“Imagine yourself arrested and imprisoned in solitary confinement, deprived of bail for nine months, unable properly to prepare your defense, the identity of your accusers unknown and you can’t see your family and friends. Think about it,’’ Maxwell’s brother, Ian Maxwell, said in a statement on YouTube released Friday.
“Wouldn’t you protest your innocence, fight to get out of jail and tell the world you’re being framed? This is the plight of our sister Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Her family’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, claimed on Friday that Maxwell is living in jail conditions that “you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies.’’
Prosecutors, however, dispute these claims, pointing out in a letter to the court that Maxwell has five lawyers, additional appeal attorneys, investigators and paralegals at her disposal. Even one of the lead prosecutors said she hand-delivered a laptop to the jail for Maxwell to review court materials.
Palm Beach attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represents three women he said were sexually abused and trafficked by Maxwell, called Ian Maxwell’s YouTube plea “disgusting.”
“Maxwell has more money than 90% of the people accused of crimes. It’s just unbelievable. There are even more people lining up against her because of what she’s put these girls through. It’s her brothers, it’s her family, I get that. They don’t want to believe what she has done, but this is so upsetting I don’t even want to tell my clients.”
Most of Friday’s nine-minute hearing was spent discussing the trial date, and the timeline for the government to turn over relevant documents in the case to the defense.
Maxwell’s lawyers have filed a motion to delay the July trial until February 2022, saying they need more time to prepare after federal prosecutors last month filed a superseding indictment adding another underage victim to the case.
Federal prosecutors, however, have argued the case should go forward on July 12. Their case docket is so full that the next available date on the government’s calendar isn’t until March 2022.
“Given [her legal team’s] skills and the resources at their disposal, there is every reason to believe that defense counsel will provide the defendant with exceptional representation at trial as scheduled,’’ prosecutors wrote.
Nathan said she would rule soon on Maxwell’s motion to delay the trial, but until then “everyone should assume mid-July,’’ she said Friday.
Maxwell was initially indicted on four criminal counts involving three victims who were allegedly abused as minors between 1994 and 1997, as well as two perjury charges stemming from statements she made in 2016 depositions in a civil defamation suit brought against her by one of the victims.
The new indictment introduced last month added two additional sex trafficking charges connected to a fourth victim who was abused between 2001 and 2004.
Over the past several months, Maxwell’s legal team filed 12 motions to dismiss charges, alter the charges or suppress some of the evidence used. Nathan rejected the motions to throw out the case but agreed to Maxwell’s request to try the perjury counts separately from the sex trafficking counts.
Nathan also has thus far rejected several efforts by Maxwell and her family to release her on bail. Prosecutors pointed out that Maxwell wasn’t forthright about her finances, initially claiming she had a lot less money at her disposal than what authorities eventually determined, as she had access to an indeterminate but prodigious amount of money held in accounts throughout the world. Maxwell also holds citizenship to the United Kingdom and France, which doesn’t extradite citizens to the United States. Those factors, combined with the prospect of decades in prison if convicted, led Nathan to deny Maxwell bail, deeming her to be a flight risk.
Maxwell filed two subsequent unsuccessful bail requests, in which she indicated that she is married — which was not previously known — and offered more details on her finances. She proposed a bail package worth $28.5 million in assets belonging to her and her family and friends — and proposed that she would stay in a New York residence. She also offered to renounce her foreign citizenship. She filed an appeal of her most recent rejection which will be heard Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
This story has been updated to correct Jeffrey Epstein’s age at the time of his death.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 7:02 PM.
