Ghislaine Maxwell abused, trafficked young girls with Jeffrey Epstein 'on a regular basis,' court documents allege
New unsealed court documents allege Ghislaine Maxwell sexually abused underage girls and facilitated the abuse of others by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Late Thursday night, a New York court unsealed a trove of new documents, including emails between Maxwell and Epstein, as well as the near-350-page deposition of Epstein and Maxwell accuser Virginia Giuffre, made in 2016.
Epstein, the disgraced financier, killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10 last year as he awaited trial for sex trafficking. Maxwell, a former socialite and one-time girlfriend of Epstein, was arrested recently in New Hampshire, after a period in apparent hiding. She has pleaded not guilty to luring girls who Epstein abused, and is currently being held without bail. Her trial is set for July 2021.
According to Giuffre’s deposition, she alleges that Maxwell recruited her “for the purpose of being trafficked” while she was working at U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. She said Maxwell and Epstein were at that time “joined hip by hip.”
Giuffre alleges that Maxwell sexually abused her “on a regular basis,” and did the same to multiple other girls over the years.
“She’s the one that procured me, told me what to do, trained me as a sex slave, abused me physically, abused me mentally,” the deposition reads. “She’s the one who I believe, in my heart of hearts, deserves to come forward and have justice happen to her more than anybody.”
None of the allegations have been proven in court, and Maxwell denies any wrongdoing.
In a police interview, Giuffre said Epstein constantly boasted about the age of girls he sexually abused. In one case, Giuffre recalled Epstein bragging about flying in three 12-year-old girls from France, and said it was a “surprise birthday gift.”
Giuffre claimed that Epstein spoke often about powerful people owing him favours, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, whom she said visited Epstein’s residence on Little St. James island in 2011.
Giuffre previously claimed Epstein instructed her to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew, when she was 17. She said in her deposition that “he (meaning Andrew) would know a lot of the truth.”
At her bail hearing this month, Maxwell claimed that she hadn’t been in contact with Epstein in over 10 years. But the court documents reveal, however, that they sent each other several emails in 2015.
In one email exchange, Epstein told Maxwell that, “You have done nothing wrong” and urged her to “start acting like it.” Another email from Epstein included what appears to be a written statement for Maxwell denying any involvement in his affairs.
The documents also name other alleged conspirators, including a 2014 document filed by two anonymous women which claims that one of them, listed as Jane Doe #3, was trafficked to former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz.
“I sought release of all the documents because they prove that all the allegations against me are false,” Dershowitz said in an email to the Guardian.
