Maxwell’s jury selection bid gets a bit rich
NEW YORK: Jurors at the child sex-trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell are expected to be asked in advance if they have strong views about people with “luxurious lifestyles” or if they have supported the #Metoo movement.
In an attempt by the British socialite’s lawyers to screen out what they regard as any potential bias, one question states: “Do you have any strong views regarding people who are wealthy?”
A follow-up question adds: “Do you have any strong views regarding people who have luxurious lifestyles? If yes, please explain …”
A draft jury selection form, submitted to a New York court, indicates that the Briton’s legal team is worried American jurors may be swayed by her gilded lifestyle as much as by her alleged sexual misdemeanours.
They will be separately asked whether Maxwell’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late American billionaire paedophile, could skew their judgment.
The questions were filed late on Friday in New York.
Maxwell, 59, daughter of Robert Maxwell, the disgraced newspaper tycoon, will go on trial in the city at the end of next month. She has been charged with six child sex offences involving victims as young as 14.
Maxwell, who has denied all the charges, could be jailed for up to 80 years if she is convicted. The indictment against Maxwell covers the period from 1994 to 2004, after she moved from the UK to the US and was dating Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while he was awaiting trial for child sex offences.