Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, wrote that Ghislaine Maxwell chose to conspire with Jeffrey Epstein for many years, “working as an accomplice and causing serious harm to vulnerable victims.” , on Wednesday night asked a judge to sentence her to at least 30 years. in the prison.
Ms. Maxwell, 60, will be sentenced on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan. If the judge follows the government’s recommendations, she could spend the rest of her life in prison.
Miss Maxwell has been sentenced 29 on five of the six charges she faces, including sex trafficking, after a month-long trial in which witnesses testified she helped Mr. grooming and abusing underage girls.
Ms. Maxwell’s attorney, for a short time last week, asked the judge, Alison J. Nathan, to issue a sentence of less than 20 years recommended by the court’s probation division. Lawyers argue that the government decided to prosecute Ms. Maxwell after Epstein’s prison suicide in 2019 to appease his victims and “repair the tarnished reputations” of the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons, where the disgraced financier died.
The defense also alleges that the cause for Ms. Maxwell’s behavior was Mr. Epstein and her father, the late British media mogul. Robert Maxwellwho they say is a cruel and scary parent.
The government, in a letter to Judge Nathan on Wednesday, rejected those claims, asserting that if there was anything different from Ms. Maxwell’s submission of the sentence, it was that she did not address his offense and his “complete lack of remorse”.
The office of Damian Williams, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote: “Instead of showing an even sign of acceptance of responsibility, Damian Williams’ office wrote, “the defendant did. a desperate attempt to place blame wherever else possible. ”
Prosecutors said Ms Maxwell’s attempt to “confound the government by prosecuting her, and to claim that she was responsible for Epstein’s crimes, was both absurd and insulting”.
The government added: “Maxwell is an adult who has made his own choices. “She chose to sexually exploit many underage girls.”
Ms. Maxwell’s trial mainly focused on events from 1994 to 2004, when she and Epstein recruited girls for his abuse, prosecutors charged. The government presented its case for 10 days, through 24 witnesses. They include four women, all adults, whose cases are at the heart of the indictment.
Two of the women testified that Mr. Epstein began having sex with them when they were 14 years old. Ms. Maxwell was sometimes present at the meetings, one woman testified; The other said that Ms. Maxwell had directly sexually abused her by touching her breasts.
In the government’s sentencing summary, prosecutors said Mr Epstein could not have committed his crimes without Ms Maxwell, who provided “a cover of respect for Epstein to lull his victims to sleep”. and their families into a false sense of security.”
Indeed, the government said, Ms. Maxwell worked with Mr. Epstein to single out victims she knew were vulnerable to exploitation – girls from struggling families, daughters of poor families. single mother family, child of a drug addict.
“Maxwell’s conduct was astonishingly predatory,” prosecutors said.
Money was also a key theme of her offense, according to the government summary. Her access to wealth, prosecutors wrote, allowed Ms. Maxwell to present herself “as a supposedly respected member of society who stood by the royal family, the president and the public. Famous people.”
“It was that same wealth that dazzled girls from disadvantaged families who became Epstein’s defendants and victims,” prosecutors said.
The memo says it is difficult to put into words the harm Ms. Maxwell has caused her victims.
“They are children who experience what can only be described as a recurring nightmare: over and over again, they find themselves alone with Maxwell and Epstein in creepy mansions, where they were sexually abused and physically violated,” prosecutors wrote.
Mr. Epstein, 66 years old, was found dead in his cell in August 2019, a month after he was arrested for sex trafficking. An indictment accuses him of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage girls at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., his mansion in Manhattan, and other locations. He also paid some of his victims to recruit more abused girls, maintaining a “stable supply of new victims,” the indictment said.
Ms. Maxwell has arrested July 2020 in New Hampshire, the authorities said, where she was hiding. She was taken to New York and has been held without bail ever since.
Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers argued last week when they submitted to the judge that she deserves clemency for having endured harsh prison conditions since her arrest. For 22 months, her lawyers say, she was locked in a small isolated cell and monitored constantly by video cameras.
But prosecutors said her complaints only highlighted the “huge gap” between her detention conditions and her “life experience”, which they described as one of “unlawful privileges”. casual”, a lavish lifestyle of residences, staff chefs and private jets.
“It is not uncommon for her to find jail time jarring,” prosecutors wrote. “From being waited on hands and feet to being detained is certainly a shocking and upsetting experience.”
