Maxwell ‘should face 55 years in prison’

GhISlAINe Maxwell should spend up to 55 years in prison for her role in the sexual abuse of underage girls, New York prosecutors have said in a court filing.

The disgraced British socialite should be sentenced to between 30 and 55 years because of her ‘monstrous conduct’ and ‘utter lack of remorse’ for the predatory recruitment of teenagers for paedophile Jeffrey epstein.

In a recommendation to the judge who will sentence Maxwell on Tuesday, prosecutors said she ‘viewed the victims as objects who could be manipulated’. The blistering 55-page memo dismissed Maxwell’s complaints about her conditions in prison as bleating from somebody used to a life of ‘ extraordinary luxury’. Maxwell, 60, pictured, will discover her fate in a Manhattan courtroom after being convicted in december of trafficking and recruiting girls as young as 14 for epstein, who killed himself in 2019. The criminality occurred between 1994 and 2004, a period when Maxwell was dating epstein.

In their submission ahead of sentencing, Maxwell’s lawyers said she should serve just over four years in jail because she was not a danger to the public.

They claimed that her abusive father robert Maxwell, the late media tycoon, left her ‘vulnerable’ to being manipulated by epstein.

The prosecution response was addressed to Judge Alison Nathan and tore into Maxwell for her ‘failure to address her offence conduct and her utter lack of remorse’.

They wrote: ‘Instead of showing even a hint of acceptance of responsibility, the defendant makes a desperate attempt to cast blame wherever else she can.’

The idea put forward by Maxwell that she was being punished for the crimes of epstein was ‘ absurd and offensive’ because ‘ Maxwell was an adult who made her own choices’, the memo said.

Maxwell’s ‘ crimes were monstrous’ because she was the ‘ organiser and leader’ of the sex trafficking operation, prosecutors said.

She ‘relished’ her role as ‘lady of the house’ at epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.