British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in US court this Wednesday (29) for helping mega-investor Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse teenagers. She was convicted on five of the six counts and still faces two other perjury suits.
Ghislaine, 60, was accused of recruiting and grooming four teenagers between 1994 and 2004 for her ex-boyfriend Epstein. He killed himself in 2019, in prison in New York, while awaiting trial on sexual abuse charges.
Alongside the trials of film producer Harvey Weinstein and singer R. Kelly, this is one of the most iconic cases in the United States among allegations that have surfaced in the midst of the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to talk about sexual abuse.
“Ghislaine Maxwell made her own choices. She committed crimes hand in hand with Jeffrey Epstein. She was a grown woman who knew exactly what she was doing,” assistant prosecutor Alison Moe said during the trial.
Defense attorneys argued that the socialite was being used as a scapegoat for Epstein and tried to discredit the four plaintiffs’ accounts. According to them, the lawsuit was motivated by money and the victims’ memories had been corrupted over the decades.
“Epstein’s death left a gap in the quest for justice for many of these women,” said Ghislaine’s lawyer Bobbi Sternheim. “She’s filling that gap, filling that empty chair.”
Ghislaine dated Epstein for several years in the 1990s, when the duo attended high society parties and traveled in luxury private jets. A few months after the investor’s death, she bought a house in Bradford, New Hampshire, for $1 million (BRL 5.7 million) in cash, where she remained out of the spotlight until her arrest in July 2020.
The daughter of British press baron Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine was used to opulence all her life. His father founded a publishing house and owned tabloids like the Daily Mirror. He was found dead on his yacht near the Canary Islands in 1991.
During the trial, jurors heard emotional and powerful testimony from four women, two of whom said they were 14 when Epstein began abusing them. Three of the victims said that Maxwell herself had touched them inappropriately.
One woman, known by her pseudonym Jane, claimed she was 14 when Epstein first abused her in 1994. Ghislaine sometimes participated in sexual encounters, she said, and acted as if it were normal. “It confused me because it didn’t feel normal to me,” he said. “I had never seen or felt anything like this.”
Prosecutor Alison Moe said Ghislaine’s presence made the girls feel comfortable with the abuser. “Epstein couldn’t have done it alone,” he said.
Moe reminded jurors of bank records showing that Epstein had paid Ghislaine millions of dollars over the years, and that, in order to maintain the luxurious lifestyle, she felt motivated to do whatever it took to leave her ex. happy boyfriend.
According to defense attorney Laura Menninger, Ghislaine is an “innocent woman” and there is no evidence that she was aware of or involved in crimes committed by her ex. “They certainly proved to you that Epstein abused money and power,” he said. “This has nothing to do with Ghislaine, but everything to do with Jeffrey Epstein.”
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