Maxwell photo shows signs of an injury while she awaits trial
GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S lawyers have released a photograph of her in prison showing a bruised face, the first picture of the British socialite since her arrest last year on sex trafficking charges.
The photo of Ms Maxwell, 59, was put in a letter filed yesterday to a New York judge by attorney Bobbi Sternheim, who believes she was injured while having to cover her eyes with a sock or towel every night as guards shone lights in her cell every 15 minutes.
“Last night, she was confronted by MDC [Metropolitan Detention Center] staff due a visible bruise over her left eye,” Ms Sternheim wrote. “No guard addressed the bruise until Ms Maxwell, who has no mirror, caught a reflection of her aching eye in the glean of a nail clipper.
“At that point, MDC staff confronted Ms Maxwell regarding the source of the bruise, threatening to place her in the SHU [special housing unit] if she did not reveal how she got it.”
Ms Sternheim added that guards at the jail put inmates in the special housing unit if they have been injured or subjected to abuse by other inmates.
Ms Maxwell’s appearance had changed in her nine months at Brooklyn’s federal Metropolitan Detention Center, with wrinkles lining her cheeks.
She appeared in court last week appearing older and frailer, with greying hair and a thinner frame, to enter pleas to new charges.
Her lawyers claimed that during a recent appeal for bail Ms Maxwell was being held in far worse conditions than other inmates at the prison.
The British socialite is awaiting trial for sex trafficking and other charges related to her allegedly procuring underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse in the 1990s and early 2000s.
She has pleaded not guilty and faces trial this summer.
Ms Maxwell’s legal team alleges that she is being treated differently due to the “Epstein effect”, saying she is being scapegoated for his crimes following his suicide in prison last year.