‘Disturbing’ photos of girls in villa Epstein and Maxwell shared
sCHOOLGIrL costumes and ‘deeply disturbing’ photographs of young girls were found at Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s villa, a court heard yesterday.
One framed photo on the financier’s desk showed him pulling down the underwear of his young goddaughter and pretending to bite her bottom.
Maxwell’s lawyer said the photograph was simply ‘a playful moment’. The age of the goddaughter was not revealed, but it has previously been reported that she was under ten.
Another artwork on the wall outside Maxwell and Epstein’s shared bedroom was ‘a sexualised photograph of a clearly underage female’, said prosecutor Maurene Comey.
On day five of the British socialite’s New York trial for sex trafficking underage girls, the prosecutor said the decor of the Florida villa where Maxwell was ‘lady of the house’ showed Epstein had a ‘prurient’ and ‘vile attraction to underage females’.
When the FBI searched the mansion in 2019, ‘they found that Mr Epstein had a collection of schoolgirl outfits and massage devices’, said another prosecutor, Alison Moe. ‘The fact that Jeffrey Epstein had a couple of schoolgirl outfits may not be illegal but it directly speaks to a preference for underage girls.’
she said it was clear Epstein had maintained an interest in schoolgirls long after the period for which Maxwell is charged – 1994 to 2004.
It was clearly relevant that ‘schoolgirl costumes – small ones – were found on the same floor of the house as the massage room where an underage girl was abused’, Miss Moe added.
Maxwell, 59, denies being a ‘dangerous predator’ who lured schoolgirls for abuse by her and multi-millionaire Epstein, who committed suicide in 2019.
The court heard that in 1994 she recruited a 14-year-old girl, known as Jane, who told jurors she was forced into sick orgies in the couple’s master bedroom, which had cavernous ‘his-and-hers’ bathrooms with massage tables.
The trial has heard that Maxwell shared Epstein’s bed and was in charge of every aspect of their household. Miss Comey said the goddaughter photograph on Epstein’s desk showed him ‘with a young girl across his lap and appears to be pulling down her underwear’, and making it look like he is ‘biting her backside’. It was a ‘deeply disturbing oversexualising of a young girl’, she said. ‘He prominently displayed that on his desk in the house that the defendant was the lady of the house.’
Christian Everdell, for Maxwell, protested that the photo showed Epstein ‘with his goddaughter in a playful moment’, adding: ‘Maybe not everyone does this with their goddaughter, but it’s nothing illegal.’
Mr Everdell asked the judge to exclude the images from the trial, saying they were ‘prejudicial’ to Maxwell. He said he feared jurors would ‘draw the improper conclusion’ that Epstein had ‘a predilection not only for young girls but pre-pubescent girls’.
Judge Alison Nathan ruled that the photographs could be admitted as evidence because they gave ‘context’ to the claims in the case.
Miss Comey argued the images contradicted the idea that ‘there was some sort of halo’ around Epstein, referring to photographs showing him and Maxwell meeting famous people including the Pope and Donald Trump.
Maxwell’s lawyer Jeffrey Pagliuca said they had evidence the socialite never lived at the Florida villa – despite a 58-page handbook of draconian rules for staff about how to treat her there.
He suggested the extraordinary book had been written by a ‘countess’ hired by Epstein.
‘Sick orgies in master bedroom’