The Mercury News

Ghislaine Maxwell hit with new charges.

- By Benjamin Weiser

Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was charged Monday for the first time with sex traffickin­g of a minor, as federal prosecutor­s accused her of grooming a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual acts with Epstein and later paying her.

A new federal indictment filed in Manhattan charged that on multiple occasions between 2001 and 2004, the girl provided nude massages to Epstein at his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, during which he engaged in multiple sex acts with her.

The new charges against Maxwell go further than those contained in an earlier indictment that accused her of helping Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately sexually abuse girls, but did not include sex traffickin­g allegation­s.

The new indictment says that after the girl provided Epstein with the massages, Maxwell or others who worked for him paid the girl hundreds of dollars in cash.

The new indictment comes almost nine months after Maxwell, 59, once a fixture on New York’s social scene, was arrested in New Hampshire on charges that she had lured multiple underage girls — one as young as 14 — into Epstein’s orbit, and contribute­d to his abuse of them.

The new indictment issued Monday cites an additional 14-year-old girl who is identified only as Minor Victim-4.

Maxwell has been jailed since her arrest in July and is awaiting a trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. She pleaded not guilty to the original charges.

The new indictment also says Epstein and Maxwell each encouraged the girl to recruit other young women to provide sexualized massages to Epstein.

In response, the indictment says, the girl brought multiple women and girls under 18 to provide erotic massages for Epstein, and both she and the girls she recruited were paid hundreds of dollars in cash.

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