Maxwell on edge amid big birthday
Sex crimes verdict due
NeW YOrK: As build-ups to a landmark birthday go, it is not perhaps what Ghislaine Maxwell would have planned in better times.
Jurors at her child sex-trafficking trial in New York could be sent out as early as Monday and come back with a verdict before Christmas Day, when the British socialite also happens to turn 60.
If found guilty of all six charges that she faces, Maxwell could be jailed for almost 80 years. She has denied all the charges.
Yet even before she knows her fate, her lawyers have started plotting a potential fightback. Central to any appeal is likely to be the impact of the conditions she has endured on remand at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre since her arrest 18 months ago in July 2020.
Maxwell’s older brother Ian believes her incarceration in virtual solitary confinement while having a torch shone into her tiny cell every 15 minutes at night by guards have “weakened” her “physical and mental state”, and made it difficult for her to give evidence in her own defence.
On Friday evening, Maxwell told the court in Manhattan she would not be taking the witness stand, claiming the US government had not proved her guilt “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Speaking shortly before the development, her brother said: “The fact that Ghislaine might not be able to take the stand in such circumstances … on account of the torturous conditions she has been subjected to for over 530 days is tantamount to a denial of justice.”
He said that Maxwell’s inability to testify was “yet another – and perhaps the most egregious – such instance in a lengthy catalogue”.
Maxwell’s lawyers and family had feared that her “fragile” mindset would allow the prosecution to run rings around her in any cross-examination.
They have also consistently argued that Covid restrictions in prison, limiting face-to-face contact with her lawyers, have hampered Maxwell’s ability to prepare for a trial, in which prosecutors have produced almost three million pages of evidence. If Maxwell is convicted this week or if the jury fails to return a verdict before the court rises for the festive break, she could face Christmas Day – and her landmark birthday – alone.
The spread of Covid and a poor vaccination rate has placed the Metropolitan Detention Centre on the highest state of alert and her brother believes inmates are likely to be barred from receiving any family visits.
Asked how he thinks his sister will feel if found guilty, he said: “How would you feel?”
“Her right to proper due process and the presumption of innocence has been completely abrogated.”