Ghislaine lured victims with ‘Cheshire cat’ grin
Maxwell and lover ‘bought $2.5m house but disgusted neighbours tried to force them out’
Who IS Ghislaine’s ‘secret husband’?
GHISLAINE Maxwell bought a $2.5million mansion in the US with a former boyfriend, compelling evidence reveals.
As the hunt for Maxwell’s rumoured ‘secret husband’ intensified, documents uncovered by the Mail help shed light on what the FBI have called her ‘opaque’ finances.
They suggest Maxwell went by the alias ‘Jennifer Ellmax’ when buying a luxurious beachfront mansion with tech chief executive Scott Borgerson in 2016. For around three years, locals said, the pair lived a nice life in Manchester-by-theSea, Massachusetts, before neighbours discovered Maxwell’s links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
After the revelation, the wealthy private community suddenly rallied round and tried to block the couple from using a private beach outside their home.
One resident of the genteel Sharksmouth estate, owned by trustees and where Mr Borgerson still lives, said: ‘They were absolutely appalled to learn who they were allowing to have run of their property.
‘The second they learned she was involved with Epstein they decided to try to limit how much they could use their land.’
In February last year, neighbours learned the quiet, well-dressed woman in their midst had been accused of being Epstein’s ‘madam’. Another resident said: ‘Someone told one of the trustees that they should look into her background and as soon as they did they decided to act.
‘Until then they [the trustees] had thought they were a nice couple. They would often see them jogging together on the paths. They were allowed to use the tennis courts and gather firewood and use the beach. Ghislaine would often jog in town. But when they realised who Maxwell was, the trustees were revolted.
‘They wanted to ostracise them as much as possible and make them feel they weren’t welcome on Sharksmouth or in Manchester. They felt sex trafficking and paedophilia are the most disgusting things in the world and they wanted them off the property.’
Mystery: From yesterday’s Irish Daily Mail
Legal papers, which name Maxwell, show the two sides fought a court battle over access to the land, with Mr Borgerson eventually winning. The judgement from March this year says ‘third-party defendant Ghislaine Maxwell is an individual who sometimes resides at the property’.
The episode soured relations on the 40-acre estate which had started positively when Mr Borgerson and, it seems, Maxwell, bought the house in 2016.
On the documents for the sale of seven-bedroom Phippin House, the owner is listed as Tidewood LLC. The manager of Tidewood is Boston-based lawyer Adam Ghander – the same person who set up Maxwell’s company, Ellmax, in Florida in 2010, on behalf of law firm Nutter, McClennan And Fish.
But a building permit filed asking for permission to renovate the house tells a different story. It lists the ‘new owners’ as ‘Scott Borgerson/Jennifer Ellmax’. Maxwell’s companies in both the US and the UK were called Ellmax and an email for a jennifer@ellmax.com is linked to her Twitter account and her former home on New York’s Upper East Side. The same law firm that set up Ellmax also had a hand in a company and trust called Angara, which links Mr Borgerson to Maxwell’s elder sister, Christine, and was set up around the time Phippin House was purchased in 2016.
Three years later, lawyer John W. Roberts, a trustee of Angara and also of Nutter, McClennan And Fish, set up a limited liability company, Granite Reality, which would go on to buy, for cash, the house where Maxwell was arrested earlier this month. In court this week, US assistant attorney Alison Moe revealed that Maxwell had toured the $1million bolthole in New Hampshire, named ‘Tuckedaway’, with an unknown man last year.
Ms Moe said an estate agent described the pair as man and wife, giving their names as British couple Scott and his journalist wife Janet or ‘Jen’ Marshall. She said it was only later the estate agent realised the woman was Maxwell, 58.
Maxwell’s notoriety rose again after she was named as a friend of Prince Andrew during his car-crash Newsnight interview last year.
She is currently behind bars on remand accused of being Jeffrey Epstein’s chief recruiter and procuring girls as young as 14 for him to abuse. Prosecutors said that she was ‘skilled at living in hiding’ and often used false names to hide from law enforcement.
The speculation about Maxwell’s possible husband was sparked on Tuesday during her bail hearing.
Along with the estate agent’s claim, Ms Moe said that Maxwell had made ‘no mention whatsoever about the financial circumstances or assets of her spouse whose identity she declined to provide to Pretrial Services’.
Mr Borgerson, 44, is a millionaire shipping data entrepreneur and former US Coast Guard lieutenant-commander who reportedly dated Maxwell in recent years. His only comments about their relathe
‘They wanted to ostracise them’
tionship were last August around the time Epstein hanged himself in prison, when he said: ‘Ghislaine Maxwell is not at my home and I don’t know where she is.’
Mr Borgerson’s father Chris, an ex-US marine and former deputy sheriff, told the Mail at his home in Festus, Missouri, he had ‘no idea’ if his son was Maxwell’s supposed ‘secret husband’.
A friend of Mr Borgerson said it was unlikely he was the mystery ‘husband’ with a British accent who accompanied Maxwell on her
‘Skilled at living in hiding’
house viewing in New Hampshire. Maxwell is facing up to 35 years in jail if convicted of the six federal counts against her.
She has pleaded not guilty and has been remanded in custody ahead of her trial, which is due to take place next July. Through her legal team, Maxwell has said she ‘vigorously denies the charges’.
Lawyers for Maxwell did not return requests for comment last night. Mr Borgerson did not respond to requests for comment and is not thought to be at home.