(New York) “A dangerous woman” accused of having prepared young girls for a “predator”: two years after the suicide in prison of billionaire accused of numerous sex crimes, Jeffrey Epstein, the trial of his ex-partner Ghislaine Maxwell has started Monday in New York.
The daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell, 59, has been detained in the United States since the summer of 2020 and faces life in prison after debates that are to last six weeks, for the twelve jurors to determine whether she participated in the vast sex trafficking of which the businessman, who died in prison in 2019, was accused.
Concretely, she is suspected of having played the role of “tout”, by recruiting between 1994 and 2004 underage girls sexually exploited by Jeffrey Epstein, with whom she maintained for nearly 30 years a loving, friendly and professional relationship.
She “was dangerous. She was preparing young girls to be attacked by a predator “by putting them at ease, in confidence, and by pretending to give them importance, described the prosecutor Lara Pomerantz in opening the debates.
But one of Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers, Bobbi Sternheim, on the contrary depicted her as “the target of the anger of women, who have been or who think they have been abused by Epstein”, largely absent from the trial.
Restless
PHOTO NEW YORK STATE SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jeffrey Epstein
In the courtroom of Manhattan Federal Court, Mr.me Maxwell, a former socialite born into a privileged background, appeared restless in her beige sweater, taking off and then removing her glasses, often touching her face and passing lots of notes to her lawyers.
The Franco-American-Briton, who complained about her conditions of detention, said she was innocent and pleaded not guilty to the six charges. She should not speak at the hearing.
His defense should argue that the alleged crimes go back more than 20 years – a psychologist will enlighten the court on the phenomenon of “false memories” – and especially that Ghislaine Maxwell is tried instead of the protagonist, Jeffrey Epstein.
The lawyer Bobbi Sternheim seeks conversely to reduce the file to “a matter of memory, manipulation and money”.
For its part, the prosecution is based on four anonymous plaintiffs – two of whom were only 14 and 15 years old – who say that they were approached by “beaters”, including Mr.me Maxwell, near their school or at work.
After the cinema and shopping “with girlfriends”, the young girls were persuaded, for a few hundred dollars, to come and give a massage, presented as non-sexual, to a powerful New Yorker ready to take their career off the ground.
“She won their trust” but “she knew exactly what Epstein was going to do to her children when she sent them to her massage rooms,” said the prosecutor, who spoke of the “nightmare” of the victims.
According to the prosecution, Ghislaine Maxwell would also have participated in the sexual assaults with her companion, either at her home in London, or at his home in Manhattan, Florida and New Mexico.
Prince Andrew, Clinton, Trump
“For my client […] there would have been no Jeffrey Epstein without Ghislaine Maxwell […] It was like a drug dealer who brought his drugs to Epstein, and his drugs were young girls, ”said in court Lisa Bloom, lawyer for several alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein, including one also of Maxwell.
The shadow of Jeffrey Epstein will obviously be omnipresent, more than two years after his suicide which deprived his victims of a trial.
The billionaire had been convicted in Florida in 2008 for having paid young girls for massages. But he had only served 13 months in prison following a confidential agreement with the prosecutor at the time.
Another shadow will hang over the Maxwell trial: that of British Prince Andrew, a close friend of Epstein, the target since August of a separate complaint for “sexual assault” filed by an American, Virginia Giuffre.
This complaint should be examined at the end of 2022 in a civil court in New York, even if the second son of Queen Elizabeth II is not prosecuted and denies these facts which would have taken place between 2000 and 2002, when Virginia Giuffre was a minor. .
Other names could be cited in the Maxwell trial: former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, due to their presence at New York parties, and former French model agent Jean-Luc Brunel, friend of ‘Epstein, indicted and imprisoned in Paris in December 2020 for rape and sexual assault.