The ex-partner of the late US multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been found guilty of sex crimes against minors. The twelve jurors of the trial in a New York court gave their verdict on Wednesday after several days of deliberations. Judge Alison Nathan did not initially announce a date for the sentence to be pronounced. Maxwell is threatened with several decades in prison.
In the trial, which has been going on since November, Maxwell was accused of having played a central role in building a ring against the sexual abuse of young girls as an assistant to the businessman Epstein, who is networked in the highest circles. The 60-year-old was charged on six counts, including trafficking in minors for abuse purposes – she was found guilty of this and four other counts. As in the case against the former film mogul Harvey Weinstein last year, the jury pronounced a guilty verdict primarily on the basis of statements by female victims and not on the basis of unambiguous factual evidence.
According to a report in the “New York Times”, Maxwell initially accepted the verdict unmoved and then drank a sip of water. She left the courtroom without further discussions with her lawyers and took a quick look at her siblings who were present at the trial in Manhattan. Maxwell had always denied the allegations and refrained from making a statement during the trial.
The defense presented the case from the start as a settlement with legal means and proxy process, since the public prosecutor could no longer prosecute Epstein itself. The 66-year-old was found lifeless in his prison cell while preparing for the abuse trial against him in August 2019 and pronounced dead in the hospital. An autopsy report found suicide.
Prosecutor Damian Williams said in view of the verdict that justice had been served. “I want to praise the courage of the girls – now grown women – who stepped out of the shadows into the courtroom.” It was their courage that made the judgment possible. At the time of the acts, the victims were between 14 and 17 years old.
Prosecutor Alison Moe had described Maxwell as a “dangerous” and “cunning sex offender” in her closing argument before Christmas. “She manipulated her victims and prepared them for sexual abuse.” Maxwell appeared “smart” and “smiling” and thus lured the alleged victims, who often came from problematic backgrounds, into a trap and brought them to Epstein.
Maxwell’s defense attorney, Laura Menninger, said her client was “an innocent woman” and was wrongly charged with crimes she did not commit. The prosecution’s indictment is based on faulty memories.
Maxwell is the daughter of the legendary British publisher Robert Maxwell (1923-1991) and came to New York in the early 1990s. There she met Epstein at one of the numerous celebrity parties and was in a relationship with him at times. Epstein’s environment described their role in his life as a mixture of employee and best friend.
Epstein’s abuse of numerous minors is believed to have occurred over decades on his properties in New York, Florida, Santa Fe, and the Virgin Islands. The case caused quite a stir in the USA because the extremely wealthy entrepreneur was known to celebrities such as ex-presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, billionaire Bill Gates and the British Prince Andrew. A previous indictment against him resulted in a very advantageous deal for Epstein. At the latest by this he became a symbol of a social elite that can get away with anything.