Jeffrey Epstein girlfriend in court Monday
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of serving to procure underage women for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, faces trial Monday on fees that might convey as much as 80 years in jail.
Maxwell, 59, has spent the final 16 months awaiting trial in solitary confinement on the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn. Final week she was denied bail for the fourth time, regardless of claims from her attorneys that she has been subjected to bodily and emotional abuse by jail guards, unsanitary dwelling circumstances and inedible meals.
Prosecutors dismissed the claims as “rhetoric and anecdotes higher suited to tabloids than briefs. The place authorized arguments may be discovered, they’re cursory and unpersuasive.”
Maxwell pressed her claims additional in an interview with the Daily Mail revealed Saturday.
“I’ve been assaulted and abused for nearly a yr and a half,” she instructed the British tabloid. “They feed me rotten meals. One apple had maggots in it.”
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She described a “pleasant rat” that routinely sat subsequent to her on an open sewer as she went to the bathroom.
“I instructed the guards, however nothing was accomplished till the rat popped out and charged a guard, who screamed in terror,” Maxwell mentioned. “Lastly, the sewer drain was coated.”
Kristie Breshears, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, instructed USA TODAY that for privateness, security and safety causes she couldn’t talk about circumstances of confinement for a selected inmate. However she wrote in an e mail that the bureau “takes allegations of employees misconduct critically.”
“Incidents of potential legal exercise or misconduct inside BOP amenities are completely investigated for potential administrative self-discipline or legal prosecution,” Breshears wrote.
Epstein, 66, was indicted in July 2019, accused of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage women at his mansions in Manhattan, Palm Seaside, Florida, and elsewhere from 2002 to 2005. The fees included intercourse trafficking and conspiracy that might have landed Epstein in jail for many years. However he killed himself in his Manhattan prison cell a month later.
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Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 on fees that embody transporting a minor for the needs of legal sexual exercise and conspiring to entice minors to journey to interact in unlawful intercourse acts. Maxwell, who denies the accusations, has been in custody ever since.
“Maxwell was amongst Epstein’s closest associates and helped him exploit women who had been as younger as 14 years outdated,” mentioned Audrey Strauss, performing U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of New York, on the time.
Jury choice in her case begins in earnest Monday in a Manhattan federal courtroom, with opening statements tentatively set for Nov. 29. Choose Alison Nathan has repeatedly rejected a proposed $28.5 million bail bundle, saying Maxwell was a flight threat.
The saga has made an enormous splash in Britain, the place police introduced final month they are going to not take any action against Prince Andrew after a evaluate prompted by an Epstein accuser who claims the prince sexually assaulted her.
Virginia Giuffre claims she was trafficked by Epstein to have intercourse with Andrew in London in 2001, when she was 17 and a minor underneath U.S. legislation. She is suing the prince, who has denied the declare.
Contributing: The Related Press