Epstein ally receives 20-year prison term

NEW YORK — Ghislaine Maxwell, the former socialite who conspired with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday by a judge who said she played a pivotal role in facilitating a horrific scheme that spanned continents and years.

Maxwell, 60, the daughter of British media magnate Robert Maxwell, was convicted Dec. 29 of sex trafficking and other counts after a monthlong trial, at which the government presented testimony and other evidence depicting Maxwell as a sophisticated predator who groomed vulnerable young women and girls as young as 14 years old for abuse by Epstein.

“The damage done to these young girls was incalculable,” said Judge Alison J. Nathan of U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked the judge to impose a sentence of at least 30 years.

Maxwell spoke in court Tuesday — her first public remarks since her July 2020 arrest. Standing at the lectern, she acknowledged “the pain and the anguish” of the victimized women who had addressed the court. But she stopped short of apologizing or accepting responsibility for her crimes.

“It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein,” Maxwell said. “Jeffrey Epstein should have been here before all of you.”

Epstein, 66, hanged himself in his Manhattan jail cell one month after his July 2019 arrest as he awaited his own trial on sex trafficking charges.

In her address to the court, Maxwell said Epstein had “fooled all of those in his orbit.” She added, “It is my sincerest hope, for all of those in the courtroom, and all those outside it, that this day brings a terrible chapter to an end.”

Wherever he was, Maxwell, his longtime romantic and then platonic companion, found girls who believed that caring adults were granting them access to a rarefied world. Instead, they became trapped, forced to gratify his sexual desires.

Her lawyers, in a sentencing brief, contended that prosecutors turned their attention to Maxwell after Epstein’s death only to appease his victims and “repair the tarnished reputations” of the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons, in whose custody he died.

Before imposing the sentence, Nathan said “although Epstein was central to this criminal scheme, Ms. Maxwell is not being punished in place of Epstein or as a proxy.”

She also noted that Maxwell had not expressed remorse or accepted responsibility. Nathan said the sentence was limited to punishment for the crimes for which Maxwell was convicted.

In the trial, the government offered its evidence in a case that centered on four accusers, who are all now adults.

Annie Farmer addressed the court Tuesday. She was 16 when she was sexually abused by Maxwell and Epstein after being lured to his ranch under the pretense of a high school program.

“Maxwell had many opportunities to come clean, but instead continued to make choices that caused more harm,” Farmer said.

After the hearing, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, “This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice.”

Maxwell’s lawyers have said she will appeal her conviction.

“Jeffery Epstein left Ghislaine Maxwell holding the whole bag,” Bobbi Sternheim, a lawyer for Maxwell, said outside the courthouse.