Federal prosecutors have filed two sex-trafficking charges against Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and jet-setting party girl charged with procuring underage girls so deceased Wall Streeter Jeffrey Epstein could rape them.
Prosecutors in the federal Southern District of New York lodged the charges in a new eight-count indictment revealed on Monday.
Yet nothing much is really new. The girl, 14, suffered sexual abuse similar to that alleged in the original six-count indictment, which included three victims. Those charges did not accuse Maxwell of sex trafficking.
Federal agents caught Maxwell at a million-dollar hideout in New Hampshire in July.
“Minor Victim 4”
“Minor Victim-4 was recruited to provide Epstein with sexualized massages for which Minor Victim-4 was paid by Epstein and/or one of his associates, including, at times, MAXWELL, at the Palm Beach Residence beginning in or around 2001,” the superseding indictment alleges.
Maxwell Superseding 3.29.21 Pp 9 11The victim was 14, the indictment says, when Maxwell at Epstein’s Palm Beach estate:
MAXWELL subsequently interacted with Minor Victim-4 on multiple occasions at Epstein’s Palm Beach Residence, knowing that Minor Victim-4 was under the age of 18 at the time.
During these interactions, which took place between approximately 2001 and 2004, MAXWELL groomed Minor Victim-4 to engage in sexual acts with Epstein through multiple means. For example, MAXWELL asked Minor Victim-4 about her family and other aspects of her life.
MAXWELL also sought to normalize inappropriate and abusive conduct by, among other things, discussing sexual topics in front of Minor Victim-4 and being present when Minor Victim-4 was nude in the massage room of the Palm Beach Residence. On multiple occasions between approximately 2001 and 2004, Minor Victim-4 provided nude massages to Epstein at the Palm Beach Residence, during which Epstein engaged in multiple sex acts with Minor Victim-4.
After those massages and sex acts, Epstein or an employee, “including at times, Maxwell,” paid the girl hundreds of dollars in cash. Maxwell invited the girl to travel with Epstein and offered to help get her a passport. Wisely, the victim declined.
Maxwell also enlisted the 14-year-old as a recruiter, the indictment alleges:
On multiple occasions between approximately 2001 and 2004, Epstein’s employees, including at times MAXWELL, sent Minor Victim-4 gifts, including lingerie, from an address in Manhattan, New York to Minor Victim-4’s residence in Florida. Epstein and MAXWELL each also encouraged Minor Victim-4 to recruit other young females to provide sexualized massages to Epstein. In response, Minor Victim-4 brought multiple females, including girls under the age of 18, to provide sexualized massages for Epstein at the Palm Beach Residence. On such occasions, both Minor Victim-4 and the girl she brought were paid hundreds of dollars in cash.
Epstein’s victims also allege that Maxwell participated in the rape and abuse.
Two days after the FBI arrested Maxwell, a woman known only as Jane Doe told Fox News that Maxwell raped her 20 or 30 times.
Maxwell and Epstein began raping the girl when she was 14 in 1991, the woman alleged. Maxwell used sex toys on the girl, she alleged, and coached her on the right way to please Epstein.
The rape only ended when the girl became pregnant. She aborted the child, she told Fox.
The woman said she would testify against Maxwell.
The New Counts
Those allegations, again, add sex-trafficking conspiracy charges to the original six.
From 2001 through 2004, the indictment alleges, Maxwell, Epstein, “and others known and unknown, willfully and knowingly did combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other to commit an offense against the United States, to wit, sex trafficking of minors.”
The second new charge mentions Maxwell alone.
Maxwell Superseding 3.29.21 Pp 17 20Maxwell also faces two county of perjury in connection with a civil lawsuit in which she testified. Maxwell “repeatedly provided false and perjurious statements, under oath,” the indictment alleges.
Maxwell’s trial is scheduled for July. Currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, she pleaded not guilty.
At the GMaxFacts Twitter feed set up to defend the socialite, her brother, Ian, said the charges don’t help the prosecution’s case:
“The government has admitted how weak its indictment is. So it has added another anonymous accuser from 20 yrs ago. That does not strengthen the government’s case”.
Epstein is dead. He supposedly hanged himself with a bed sheet in his cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
Skeptics don’t believe the story.
