Maxwell loses bid to let her witnesses hide their identity
GHISLAINE Maxwell’s defence got off to a shaky start yesterday when a judge threw out her request to allow her backers to testify anonymously.
The alleged child sex trafficker argued that three witnesses lined up to speak in her favour might pull out unless they were granted the same right to secrecy as her alleged victims.
But Judge Alison Nathan slapped down the ‘unprecedented request’ by citing the ‘constitutional right’ of the press and public to know a courtroom witness’s identity.
Maxwell’s lawyer Bobbi Sternheim had claimed that unless the trio could testify in privacy, it could ‘impact the willingness of these witnesses to testify, thereby compromising Ms Maxwell’s right to present her defence’. But in a blow to the British socialite, the judge said if her witnesses refused to testify, her lawyers could force them to by issuing a court summons.
Maxwell, 59, denies luring schoolgirls into the clutches of her paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in 2019.
As her defence got under way in New York’s Thurgood Marshall courthouse on day 11 of the trial yesterday, her former PA told jurors she thought the first alleged victim, ‘Jane’, had been 18.
Cimberly Espinoza said when she met Jane – who testified she was forced to take
‘I highly respected Ghislaine’
part in orgies with Maxwell and Epstein at the age of 14 – she was introduced as ‘Jeffrey’s goddaughter’.
Mrs Espinoza, 55, Maxwell’s executive assistant from 1996 to 2002 and the first of her witnesses to take the stand, told jurors she remembered meeting Jane – a pseudonym – and her mother in financier Epstein’s Manhattan office.
She said: ‘Jane’s mother said that Jane was Jeffrey’s goddaughter. For myself and the other girls in the office, she was treated with the utmost respect. She was considered family of Jeffrey – special.’ Asked by Maxwell’s lawyer Christian Everdell how old she appeared, Mrs Espinoza replied: ‘Probably 18.’
When Jane gave evidence in the first week, she told how Maxwell and Epstein had approached her at a 1994 school summer camp when she was 14, and offered to help her pursue her dream to become an actress or singer.
They invited her to his villa in Palm Beach, Florida, where a ‘giggling’ Maxwell led her to the master bedroom and forced her into a ‘hands everywhere’ orgy with Epstein.
Yesterday Mrs Espinoza said her impression of Epstein and his supposed goddaughter had been that of ‘a loving relationship’.
She said for many years she kept in touch with Jane, who became a soap opera actress, and Jane had sent her signed photos from the soap’s cast with messages such as ‘With love, Jane’ and ‘Dearest Cimberly…take care, Jane.’
Mrs Espinoza said in her six years working for Maxwell at Epstein’s New York office, she only had admiration for her.
‘I highly respected Ghislaine. I looked up to her very much and learnt a lot from her,’ she said.
She told jurors how she helped
Maxwell refurbish and decorate the private Caribbean island Epstein bought, including importing artworks, sand and palm trees. ‘You shipped in sand to a tropical island?’ asked Mr Everdell.
‘He wanted more sand on the beach,’ she replied.
Mrs Espinoza said Maxwell and Epstein had been a ‘flirty’ couple when she first knew them in 1996 but by the 2000s ‘went their separate ways’. Young women who were ‘over 18’ started appearing in the office, she said.
Mr Everdell asked her: ‘In all the years you worked for Ghislaine Maxwell, did you ever see her engage in inappropriate activity with underage girls?’ Mrs Espinoza replied: ‘Never.’
The cross-examination by prosecutor Lara Pomerantz lasted less than a minute, with only one question: ‘You never went to the Palm Beach house, did you?’
When Mrs Espinoza confirmed she had not, the prosecutor said: ‘No more questions, your honour.’
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to six charges of helping Epstein abuse underage girls.
The trial continues.