SHRINKS MONITOR MAXWELL
‘Constant surveillance’ in fed lockup
Ghislaine Maxwell has been under constant surveillance by prison psychologists who are evaluating her for hours on end without her consent, her attorney claimed in a letter filed in her criminal case.
Maxwell is asking the judge in her case to order that her lockup conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn be modified so she can review volumes of discovery material before her trial.
Her team has argued she has been held under “uniquely onerous conditions,” which would have forced her to choose between showering and reviewing the material.
She’s also under constant surveillance at the jail because of her alleged co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide while in a lower Manhattan jail cell last year, according to her lawyers.
“Ms. Maxwell continues to be surveilled 24 hours a day by security cameras and is under constant observation by multiple prison guards,” her attorney Christian Everdell wrote in a letter Monday night.
“The defense recently learned that some of these prison guards were, in fact, BOP [federal Bureau of Prisons] psychologists who were observing Ms. Maxwell and evaluating her for hours each day without her knowledge,” he added. “We are aware of no other pretrial detainee receiving such treatment.”
Guards and other staff members at the jail have also continued waking up Maxwell in the middle of the night, the letter states.
“Even on more routine matters, Ms. Maxwell’s treatment has been worse than other pretrial detainees,” the letter adds.
“For example, Ms. Maxwell has no access to email and has been given 30 minutes per month for personal phone calls, far fewer than the 500 minutes granted to other pretrial detainees since the COVID-19 crisis.”
In response to a previous request by Maxwell to be let out of solitary confinement at the jail, Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Alex Rossmiller said the measures were taken to ensure her safety.
“For reasons including safety, security, and the orderly functioning of the facility, BOP has made the determination that, at present, the defendant should not be fully integrated into the dorm-style accommodations of the general population,” Rossmiller wrote.
The alleged madam is awaiting trial on charges that she procured girls for Epstein to abuse and then lied about it under oath. She has pleaded not guilty.
She was ordered held without bail last month and is being held in the MDC pending her trial.