The former CEO of Reddit says Ghislaine Maxwell attended a venture capital company’s holiday party in 2011 and that the guests knew she was procuring young girls, as alleged in a federal grand jury’s indictment, who became victims of deceased sex pervert and Wall Street financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Before she landed at Reddit, Ellen K. Pao (shown) was an investment partner at Kleiner-Perkins, the company that hosted the party, which was attended by high-tech big wigs and former Vice President Al Gore.
Maxwell was there, too, Pao says, and no one much cared what she was doing for Epstein.
Arrested last week at her mansion in Bradford, New Hampshire, and behind bars in New York, Maxwell faces a six-count indictment in connection with her role in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
“We Knew”
Pao blurted out the truth on Twitter yesterday.
“She was at the Kleiner holiday party in 2011, but I had no desire to meet her much less have a photo taken with her,” Pao tweeted at 2:09 a.m. “We knew about her supplying underage girls for sex, but I guess that was fine with the ‘cool’ people who managed the tightly controlled guest list.”
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Twenty-one minutes later, Pao attempted to amend her remark: “To be clear, the press had described her as supplying underage girls for sex, but she had not been charged so I guess it would be more accurate to say we ‘suspected’ v ‘knew.’”
When a Twitter follower wrote that “it sounds like you were fine with it too,” Pao added a third comment.
“Of course I wasn’t,” she tweeted. “But I was a junior partner on the outside of the inner circle, and what I said made no difference here and in many other decisions.”
One answer to the revelation expressed the thoughts of many: “Wait What? Everyone in the room knew she was a child sex trafficker… and no one in the room objected to her presence?”
Pao left Kleiner-Perkins on bad terms and tried to shake down the company in the usual discrimination lawsuit.
She joined Reddit in 2013 and left in 2015.
The Guests
In 2011, Business Insider revealed part of the guest list at the bash.
Besides Gore, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy; former Twitter engineering head Mike Abbott, who had recently joined Kleiner Perkins; economist Laura Tyson; Hewlett-Packard Chairman Ray Lane, and Facebook e-commerce leader Jared Morgenstern were there.
Question is, what did “the cool people” know, not least Gore, and when did they know it?
How many of the high-profile tech tycoons knew of Maxwell’s activities as detailed in the federal indictment?
And if they knew, or even suspected it, why didn’t they go to the police?
The Indictment
Maxwell, arrested July 2, almost a year exactly after Epstein was arrested, faces four counts directly related to recruiting and grooming three victims for Epstein:
• Conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts;
• Enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts;
• Conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity;
• Transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
She also faces two perjury charges in connection with her testimony in a civil lawsuit in 2016.
Authorities also allege that Maxwell participated in the abuse.
Prosecutors filed a detention memorandum asking the court to deny bail because her fabulous wealth, three passports, and likelihood of conviction and ensuing prison term mean she’s a certain flight risk.
After Maxwell was arrested, one of Epstein’s victims told Fox News that Maxwell raped her at least 20 to 30 times beginning when Maxwell recruited her at 14 years old.
“She did rape me,” she told Fox. “I would say it’s more than 20 or 30 times. Just as evil as Jeffrey Epstein…. She is a rapist.”
The abuse continued until the girl was 16 and Epstein forced her to have an abortion, the girl alleged, when a driver with a gun, at the behest of Maxwell and Epstein, dumped her at her grandparents’ home naked.
“Ms. Maxwell was a participant, and she made it very clear that I was to keep my mouth shut or harm would come to my family and myself and harm did come to me.”
H/T: The National Pulse
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
