Ghislaine breaks down as she is denied bail
Maxwell pleads on video link to stay in luxury hotel ++ Breaks down in court after bail refused ++ Told she faces 35 years... and 12 MONTHS behind bars before trial
GHISLAINE Maxwell broke down in tears last night after a judge ruled she must remain in jail for at least a year pending her trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The British socialite was denied bail after a court was told she had the ‘motive and opportunity’ to flee the United States to avoid prosecution over allegations she groomed girls as young as 14 for her paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein to abuse.
Maxwell, appearing via video link at a virtual court hearing, tilted her head down and rested her chin on her hands as Judge Alison Nathan told her she must stay behind bars. The 58-year-old wiped away tears as she learnt her fate.
The US judge said the risks of releasing Maxwell were ‘simply too great’, adding that ‘no combination of her conditions’ could assure her appearance in court. The court also heard that:
Maxwell is pleading not guilty to the six federal counts she faces;
She used an alias and posed as a journalist to view her €880,000 hideaway in the forest of New Hampshire;
The socialite asked to be bailed to a ‘luxury hotel in Manhattan’;
No further charges against her are anticipated at this time;
Maxwell kept her mobile phone wrapped in tinfoil to stop it being hacked.
Judge Nathan said Maxwell, who faces up to 35 years in jail if convicted of all charges, had failed to give a full account of her finances, which meant setting bail would be impossible. The judge also criticised her decision to hide for the past year, including buying the house in New Hampshire through an anonymised company.
Maxwell, prosecutors said, posed as a journalist called Janet Marshall when she
‘I know she has no remorse’ What ‘Jane Doe’ told the judge Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did. The sociopathic manner in which she nurtured our relationship and abused my trust… she would have done anything to satisfy Mr Epstein... If she is out, I need to be protected. I know what she has done, I know how many lives she has ruined, and I know she has no remorse. If she believes she risks prison, she will never come back. She was in charge. She egged him on... I have great fear that Maxwell will flee. She is a predator and a monster.
went to view the secluded property, which was paid for in cash.
Maxwell asked to be bailed to a ‘luxury Manhattan hotel’ ahead of her trial next year, but Judge Nathan said the US government’s case against her ‘appears strong’.
The ruling was delivered at a bail hearing during which two of Maxwell’s alleged victims branded her a ‘sexual predator’ and a ‘monster’ who had never shown remorse.
One of her accusers, who asked for anonymity and was referred to as Jane Doe, said in a statement read out in court: ‘Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did. The sociopathic manner in which she nurtured our relationship and abused my trust… she would have done anything to satisfy Mr Epstein... If she is out, I need to be protected.
‘I know what she has done, I know how many lives she has ruined and I know she has no remorse.’
Another alleged victim, Annie Farmer, said she had met Maxwell when she 16.
She called her ‘a sexual predator’ who abused her. ‘She also has a demonstrated contempt for our legal system by committing perjury,’ she added.
Ms Farmer, who has accused the defendant of enabling her abuse, told the court that Maxwell ‘has never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes’ and that ‘the danger she poses must be taken seriously.’
‘She is a sexual predator who groomed and abused me and countless other children and young women,’ Ms Farmer said.
Maxwell’s failed bid for bail came almost a year to the day after Epstein was remanded in custody on child sex charges. Weeks later he killed himself in prison.
She is accused of grooming girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997, a period when she was his girlfriend.
The British socialite was dressed in a brown shirt, with her normally short hair in a bun, as Judge Nathan set an anticipated trial date of July 12 next year.
Maxwell is being held in the fortress-like Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn where she is closely monitored and wearing paper clothes to ensure she does not kill herself like her former boyfriend.
Maxwell’s legal team had offered a
€5million bail package for her to be freed from jail after she was arrested at her New Hampshire bolthole earlier this month.
As part of the package, her lawyers said she would be confined to a luxury hotel in the New York area, surrender all her travel documents and be subject to GPS monitoring.
But the court hearing in New York last night was told that along with her three passports, connections to some of the world’s most powerful people and her own fortune of almost €9million,
Maxwell has every incentive to try to flee. Prosecutors said Maxwell was ‘skilled at living in hiding’, has ‘few if any’ community ties and therefore should be denied bail because she is the ‘very definition of a flight risk’. They argued against her being
granted bail, citing that due to her holding French and British passports, she could ‘live beyond the reach of extradition indefinitely’.
Assistant US attorney Alison Moe claimed that when Maxwell bought her Bradford, New Hampshire home, she toured the property in November last year using the alias of ‘Janet Marshall’ and claiming she worked as a journalist.
‘There are serious red flags here,’ the prosecutor said, adding that Maxwell had a ‘strong incentive to flee’ to avoid accountability for her crimes. Ms Moe read out a victim statement from the woman identified as Jane Doe, who argued that she was a flight risk.
The accuser said she knew Maxwell for ten years and that the British socialite had intended to ‘deliver’ her to Epstein, knowing the ‘heinous dehumanisation that awaited me’.
She described Maxwell as ‘sociopathic’ and said she would ‘have done anything to get what she wanted – to satisfy Jeffrey Epstein’. The woman claimed that Maxwell ‘was in charge’ and ‘egged’ Epstein on. She added that ‘if she is out, I need to be protected’, citing a phone call she received in the middle of the night threatening her two-year-old child.
Maxwell has been held without bail since her arrest on July 2 at the house in New Hampshire, where prosecutors say she refused to open the door for FBI agents.
Maxwell was charged with recruiting at least three girls, one as young as 14, for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997.
An indictment alleged that she helped groom the victims to endure sexual abuse and was sometimes there when Epstein abused them.
It also alleged that she lied during a 2016 deposition in a civil case stemming from Epstein’s abuse of girls and women.
Maxwell’s lawyers argued that Epstein’s death left the media ‘wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein – even though she’d had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade, had never been charged with a crime or been found liable in any civil litigation’.
Maxwell’s lawyers say she ‘vigorously denies the charges, intends to fight them, and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.’
Her arrest and detention marks a stunning fall from grace for a woman once feted by New York society and counted many highprofile figures as friends.
According to reports, Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced late British newspaper tycoon Robert, introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein.