NEW YORK - Ghislaine Maxwell was a “dangerous predator” who “served up” girls for sexual abuse, a packed court in New York was told yesterday, with opening statements setting the scene for what is expected to be a six-week hearing at the imposing Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse in Lower Manhattan.
As the much-awaited trial got underway, the prosecution said the British socialite was billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s “second in command” who lured vulnerable teenagers for him to assault.
The Daily Mail said that Maxwell, who denies wrongdoing, “listened intently, occasionally scribbling in a notebook and turning to look at her sister”.
The British socialite, who has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her, will challenge claims she groomed underage girls for convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Her defence team is expected to argue that some of her accusers are motivated by money. The daughter of late media mogul Robert Maxwell faces up to 80 years in prison if found guilty.
A lawyer for one of the alleged victims told The Times that “survivors have waited many years for this day” and said the trial “will give them a voice – the voice that the abuse stole from them”.
The socialite’s alleged crimes will be aired in gruelling detail but the “spectre” of Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 while awaiting trial, is likely to “hang heavily over the trial”, said The Independent.
What are the charges?
The testimony of four of Epstein’s accusers will be at the heart of the prosecution’s case, said the BBC.
They will allege that Maxwell was integral to Epstein’s abuse of teenagers during the 1990s and early 2000s, and that she sometimes participated in it. She is accused of luring victims with cash in exchange for sexualised massages in Florida, New York, New Mexico and London.
Annie Farmer, the only one of the four to waive her anonymity, claimed she was abused by Epstein at his New Mexico ranch in 1996.
Maxwell faces six charges: 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, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor.
The prosecution will allege that Maxwell would befriend girls by asking them about their schools and their families, and “having developed a rapport with a victim”, would “try to normalise sexual abuse for a minor victim by, among other things, discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein”.
