Maxwell at risk from Covid-19 if kept in jail, say her lawyers

GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S lawyers are appealing to a New York court to grant the British heiress bail, secured by properties in the UK worth nearly $4million (£3.1million), claiming she is at “serious risk” of contracting Covid-19 in prison.

Ms Maxwell is being held in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on charges she helped lure at least three girls, one as young as 14, to be sexually abused by longtime associate Jeffrey Epstein. She denies the charges.

Lawyers offered a $5 million “personal recognisance bond” they said would be assured by six trusted friends and leveraged by homes in Britain worth up to $3.75 million, in papers filed at the US District Court of the Southern District of New York.

Attorneys from Cohen and Gresser said Ms Maxwell, 58, would be at risk of catching Covid-19 in prison, and that this “extraordinarily dangerous” threat “justifies release on bail”.

Ms Maxwell’s defence argued that “Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein” and did not pose any threat to the community, or suffer from any “compulsive sexual proclivities”.

They claimed she was made a scapegoat for the disgraced financier after he killed himself in jail last summer. “The media focus quickly shifted to our client – wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein,” the lawyers wrote.

Ms Maxwell is due to appear remotely in court in Manhattan on Tuesday, where her application for bail will be heard.