Maxwell denies underage sex claims
NEW YORK • Ghislaine Maxwell forcefully rejected suggestions she had seen the late financier Jeffrey Epstein have sex with underage girls or helped him arrange illicit sexual encounters, in a 2016 deposition made public on Thursday.
The British socialite at times appeared insistent and frequently evasive as she responded under oath over 91/2 hours to questions from lawyers for Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in April 2016, as part of a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit against her.
“I can only testify to what I know and the fact (Giuffre) has lied about me from the beginning to the end,” Maxwell said.
The 58-year-old Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges she helped Epstein recruit and groom underage girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sexual acts in the mid-1990s, and lied for having denied involvement under oath.
Maxwell's 418-page deposition left unresolved who else she might have known was involved in Epstein's orbit. Nearly all names other than hers and Epstein's were blacked out.
But her lawyers had fought hard to keep the deposition under wraps, saying the release could violate her right against self-incrimination, and that bad publicity could make it hard to find an impartial jury in her criminal case.
Maxwell's lawyers have argued the “intimate” and “personal” questions she was asked could suggest Giuffre's lawyers believed they had a factual basis to ask them, even if the suggested misconduct never happened.
At one point, Maxwell called Giuffre an “absolute and total liar” when asked if she and Epstein had threeway sex.
But a federal appeals court on Monday said the public's right to see the deposition and other materials outweighed Maxwell's concerns.
U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska later directed that the materials be unsealed, which Giuffre and the Miami Herald newspaper had sought.
Maxwell's father was British media mogul Robert Maxwell. Her trial is scheduled for July 2021.
Epstein once counted U.S. President Donald Trump, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Britain's Prince Andrew as friends. They have not been accused of criminal wrongdoing.
Giuffre, 37, has said Epstein kept her as a “sex slave” with Maxwell's assistance.