Almost exactly two years after Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire and taken to New York to face charges that she conspired with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and abuse underage girls, she will be sentenced on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
If Judge Alison J. Nathan agrees to the government’s request for a sentence of at least 30 years, Ms. Maxwell could spend most of the rest of her life in prison.
Miss Maxwell, 60, daughter of British media magnate Robert Maxwell, was convicted on December 29 and will face sentences on three counts: sex trafficking, conspiracy and child transport minors with the intention of engaging in illegal sexual activity.
The defense asked the judge to impose a sentence of less than 20 years recommended by the court’s probation office. There is no minimum sentence for Ms. Maxwell, who has been jailed since she was denied bail following her arrest on 2 July 2020.
Ms. Maxwell’s sentencing hearing could last more than an hour. Several of her accusers, including several who testified at her trial, have asked to see the judge, and Ms. Maxwell will also be given an opportunity to speak. Her lawyers have said she is planning to appeal, and it is possible that Ms Maxwell, who did not testify at her trial, will also choose to remain silent in court on Tuesday.
Her trial was seen by many as a calculation that Mr Epstein, 66, her longtime companion, never had. The disgraced financier hanged himself in a Manhattan prison a month after his arrest in July 2019 pending a separate trial on sex trafficking charges.
However, Mr. Epstein remained lurking in the trial – his name came up repeatedly, and Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers took advantage of every opportunity to separate their client from his.
Ms. Maxwell’s attorneys, in a sentencing letter to the judge, cited testimony at trial that Ms. Maxwell “facilitated the abuse of Epstein”, but argued that “Epstein was the mastermind. , Epstein was the primary abuser and Epstein orchestrated the crime for his own personal gratification . “
Lawyers say the government only noticed Maxwell after the public outcry following Epstein’s death while in the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons. They said authorities urgently wanted to “assuage the new suffering of Epstein’s accusers and repair the tarnished reputations of the DOJ and BOP.”
“There will be no trial for Epstein and no vindication and public justice for his accusers,” the lawyers wrote. “The government now has one big hole to fill: Epstein’s empty chair.”
The office of Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in submission to the judge that Ms Maxwell had failed to address her offense and showed “absolute no remorse”. .
Prosecutors wrote that Ms. Maxwell’s attempt “confounded the government by prosecuting her, and claimed that she was responsible for Epstein’s crimes”.
“Instead of showing even a sign of claiming responsibility, the defendant tried desperately to place the blame wherever else possible,” they said.
The prosecution provided its evidence through 24 witnesses over 10 days in a case centered on four accusers, now adults. Two of the women said Mr. Epstein performed sexual acts with them starting when they were 14 years old. One said that Ms. Maxwell was occasionally present at the meetings, and the other said that Ms. Maxwell had directly sexually abused her by touching her breasts.
“Maxwell is a sophisticated predator who knows exactly what she’s doing,” Alison Moe, a federal prosecutor, told the jury in her summary. “She manipulates her victims and she prepares them for sexual abuse.”
