Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty of sex trafficking of minors – The HuffPost

JANE ROSENBERG via Reuters

UNITED STATES – Former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty on Wednesday, December 29 by a court in New York of a series of sexual crimes, in particular trafficking in young underage girls for the benefit of the former American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, who faces decades in prison, has been appearing in Manhattan federal court since late November on six counts, including having provided minors to his former partner for him to sexually abuse between the years 1994 and 2004. Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019.

Prosecuted on six counts of sex crimes, she was found guilty on five of them. “Very disappointed with the verdict,” her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim announced to the press her intention to appeal.

A jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell

Count 1: Guilty
Count 2: Not Guilty
Count 3: Guilty
Count 4: Guilty
Count 5: Guilty
Count 6: Guilty

– Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 29, 2021

After 40 hours of deliberation over five days, “a unanimous jury found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable – facilitating and taking part in the sexual assault of children”, Manhattan Federal District Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

He denounced “crimes perpetrated with his lifelong partner and accomplice, Jeffrey Epstein”, who committed suicide in a New York prison in August 2019, even before being tried for sex crimes.

“Courage of the girls”

Regretting that “justice has taken too long”, the prosecutor praised the “courage of young girls who have become women”, four victims who testified against Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Jane”, “Kate”, “Carolyn” and Annie Farmer, 42, the only one to speak without a pseudonym, exposed part of their lives damaged by forced sex with Epstein – including sex massages – while ‘they were between 14 and 17 years old, often in Maxwell’s presence.

At the verdict, Ghislaine Maxwell, favorite daughter of press magnate Robert Maxwell (died 1991) and figure of the European and American jet set, was surrounded by her brother Kevin and her sisters Isabel and Christine.

She walked out of the courtroom with her head bowed, flanked by security guards.

Her lawyers simply asked Judge Alison Nathan to make sure the 60-year-old received a third dose of the vaccine against the Covid in his Brooklyn jail.

Ghislaine Maxwell, who turned 60 on Christmas Day and who is British, French and American at the same time, has been incarcerated since her arrest in the summer of 2020 in the northeastern United States, a year after the suicide of ‘Epstein.

Pressure on the jury

After three weeks of debate, the jury – six women and six men – had all the trouble in the world to agree unanimously on a verdict. So much so that speculation has been rife on a possible acquittal, or even a new trial.

Judge Nathan even had to put pressure on the jury by worrying about the “astronomical peak” of the Omicron variant contaminations of Covid-19 in New York which could have postponed the outcome of the trial beyond the New Year if the one of the parties to the lawsuit had fallen ill.

The prosecution portrayed Ghislaine Maxwell as a “sophisticated predator” who acted knowingly to attract and seduce young girls, sometimes as early as 14, to have coerced sex with Epstein in his residences. from Florida, New York or New Mexico. Often in the presence of the heiress Maxwell.

The shadow of celebrities

Four women, including three under pseudonyms, testified against the accused who, she pleaded not guilty and spoke only once to reaffirm that she was innocent.

Besides Jeffrey Epstein, other celebrity shadows have hung over this lawsuit: British Prince Andrew, a relative of Jeffrey Epstein, has been the subject since August of a separate complaint for “sexual assault” filed by an American, Virginia Giuffre.

Welcoming the verdict, Virginia Giuffre recalled “having lived the horror of Maxwell’s attacks” and paid tribute to “all the other girls and young women who suffered at her hands and whose lives she destroyed”. She said she hopes others besides Maxwell will “be held to account”.

The names of former US presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have also been mentioned because of their presence at parties with the Epstein-Maxwell couple in New York or Florida in the 1990s, with supporting photos.

Finally, on the French side, the ex-agent of models Jean-Luc Brunel, friend of Epstein, was indicted and imprisoned in Paris in December 2020 for rape and sexual assault.

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