Maxwell ‘first inmate to get lawyer visit’ since lockdown
GHISLAINE MAXWELL has reportedly been allowed an in-person visit by her legal team in what is believed to be the first permitted in a federal jail in New York City during the lockdown.
According to the New York Daily News, Miss Maxwell, who faces six criminal charges, was allowed to hold a face-to-face meeting at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Friday morning. All the attendees reportedly wore masks.
Miss Maxwell has been held on remand for less than two months. Other inmates, who have been in lockdown since the start of the pandemic, have had neither family nor legal visits.
Susan Marcus, a lawyer representing detainees in the centre, told the paper: “I’m incredulous really that she was the first one when there are those of us who have been waiting for nearly six months to have an in-person visit.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to confirm or deny whether Miss Maxwell was the first inmate to receive an in-person visit since the lockdown.
“While, in general, legal visits are suspended, case-by-case accommodations will be accomplished at the local level and confidential legal calls will be allowed in order to ensure inmates maintain access to counsel,” said Justin Long, a spokesman for the bureau.
“We are facilitating attorney-client visitation, as well as judicial proceedings, via video conference, primarily at our detention centres.”
Miss Maxwell, 58, who denies charges of luring girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse, was denied bail in July.
Alison Nathan, the US district judge, ruled that Miss Maxwell, daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell, represented a significant flight risk.
Miss Maxwell had offered to post the $5 million (£3.75 million) bail money, but that did not satisfy the court, with Judge Nathan saying an even larger bond or the most restrictive house arrest conditions would be insufficient.
In February last year, the Sunset Park facility was at the centre of angry protests after inmates were left without heating during a cold snap because of a partial power outage.