Epstein associate Maxwell back in court

NEW YORK — British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell appeared in court Saturday for a rare weekend hearing at which attorneys made arguments about how the judge should instruct the jury on the law in her sex abuse trial.

U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan scheduled the hearing — held in an otherwise closed courthouse and with jurors absent — in an effort to keep the case on a fast track that will have it reach the jury early this week. Closing arguments and Nathan’s reading of about 80 pages of instructions are set for Monday.

Prosecutors and Maxwell’s attorneys spent the morning in federal court in Manhattan sparring over the exact wording the judge will use to describe to jurors the legal elements that must be proved to convict Maxwell on six criminal counts, including sex trafficking of a minor. One of the requests by Maxwell’s lawyers that was approved was that the judge should refer to her as “Ms. Maxwell” instead of “the defendant.”

Maxwell sat at the defense table, sometimes taking notes. Her brother and sister were among the spectators as usual.

Maxwell, 59, has pleaded innocent to charges that prosecutors say show that she and financier Jeffrey Epstein were involved in a scheme to groom teenagers to have sexual encounters with him. The defense has countered that she’s being made a scapegoat for 66-year-old Epstein, who killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019 as he awaited his own sex-trafficking trial.

The defense rested its case Friday after Maxwell told the judge she wouldn’t testify.