Maxwell moved to NY for Epstein-related sex charges
NEW YORK » Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred Monday to New York to face charges that she recruited women and girls, one as young as 14, for him to sexually abuse, the Bureau of Prisons said.
Prosecutors have asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in Manhattan federal court for for Maxwell, 58, who was arrested last week at a $1 million estate she had purchased in New Hampshire.
Maxwell, the daughter of the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was the former girlfriend and longtime close associate of Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail last August while he awaited trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell has been indicted on multiple charges, including that she conspired to entice girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 through 1997.
Several of Epstein’s victims have described Maxwell as his chief enabler, recruiting and grooming young girls for abuse. She has denied wrongdoing and called claims against her “absolute rubbish.”
In a letter to a judge Sunday, prosecutors said they have communicated with Maxwell’s defense lawyer, Christian Everdell, who would like a Friday bail hearing where she will be arraigned.
Prosecutors have said Maxwell “poses an extreme risk of flight.” Maxwell has three passports, is wealthy with lots of international connections, and has “absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence,” they wrote in a memo.
Maxwell is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The jail has had its share of troubles in recent years, but not the specter of Epstein’s suicide.
“Somebody made the conscious decision, ‘let’s not house her where Epstein was housed,’” said Jack Donson, a former prison official who worked for the Bureau of Prisons for more than two decades.
Maxwell is being prosecuted in Manhattan but jailed in Brooklyn, the opposite of what happened with Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan while on trial in Brooklyn last year, prompting closures of the Brooklyn Bridge each day as he was taken to and from court.
Donson, who advises white-collar criminals on what to expect in prison, said the lockup on the Brooklyn waterfront is akin to the federal prison system’s version of a highrise apartment building — highly secure, with elevators to move inmates from floor-to-floor, airconditioned cells and limited room for recreation or other activities.
The facility, opened as a federal jail in the early 1990s, houses about 1,600 inmates. One of its two main buildings is a century-old former Navy warehouse.
Donson said he’s made frequent visits to the jail and observed staff acting “downright unprofessional” yelling and cursing at inmates. The jail’s former warden, Cameron Lindsay, said it is “one of the most troubled” facilities in the federal prison system and had a “unique history of staff misconduct.”
A message seeking comment on problems at the Brooklyn jail was left Thursday with the Bureau of Prisons.
A week-long power failure at the Brooklyn jail in January 2019 sparked unrest among shivering inmates and drew concerns from a federal watchdog about the government’s bungled response. In March, the jail had the federal prison system’s first inmate to test positive for coronavirus, and the facility’s response to the disease led to an ongoing court battle over allegations that inmates were being put at serious risk.
Last month, an inmate died after correctional officers sprayed him with pepper spray, which has led to an investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general.