(New York) Ghislaine Maxwell, the former companion of American financier Jeffrey Epstein on trial in New York for sex trafficking, will spend Christmas and her sixtieth birthday in prison awaiting her verdict, the jury still not having decided Wednesday of his guilt or his innocence.
After a first hour in camera Monday, and two full days Tuesday and Wednesday, Judge Alison Nathan has made an appointment with the twelve jurors Monday at 9 a.m., after the Christmas break, to resume their deliberations in federal court in Manhattan. The jury declined its proposal to return to deliberate Thursday, December 23: “no, thank you”, they told him on a handwritten note.
The jurors must say if Ghislaine Maxwell, born in the Paris region on December 25, 1961 and who has triple British, French and American nationality, helped her companion, Jeffrey Epstein to surround himself with young girls whom he sexually exploited, between 1994 and 2004.
She risks a long prison sentence if she is found guilty of the six crimes attributed to her, all in connection with sexual violence committed by the American financier on four victims, minors at the time of the facts, and who testified during the trial since the end of November.
Suspected of having surrounded himself for years with many young girls, to whom he asked for sexual massages, in his luxurious residences in Florida, New Mexico or in the US Virgin Islands, the multimillionaire had committed suicide in a new prison -Yorkaise in the summer of 2019. An end that caused a scandal, the powerful financier taking his secrets in death and depriving dozens of victims of his trial.
A year later, Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested.
This regular in the international jet set, daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991, was portrayed Monday by prosecutor Alison Moe as a “sophisticated predator” and key figure in the system set up with Jeffrey Epstein, of which she was. the “partner in love” and “the right arm”.
Thus, one of the victims, “Carolyn”, told how she was paid, from the age of 14, 300 dollars for each massage which always ended in a sexual act. She named Ghislaine Maxwell as one of the women who set the dates and assured that she had seen her naked and touched her chest in the Palm Beach villa.
The defense on the contrary pleaded the acquittal, assuring that there was “no proof that Ghislaine Maxwell” recruited only one of the four victims to deliver it to Epstein and castigating “the very bad and variable memory” of the accusers on events over 25 years old.
During their deliberations, the jurors asked to have in hand the transcripts of several interrogations, including those of several victims.