Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty of sex trafficking

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 30 December 2021

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NEW YORK - British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty in New York on Wednesday of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell faces spending the rest of her life behind bars after the 12-person jury convicted her on five of the six counts she was facing, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a minor.

The conviction, just days after she turned 60 on Christmas, caps a remarkable fall from grace for the Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, who grew up in wealth and privilege as a friend to royalty.

She sat passively in the Manhattan courtroom, slowly removing her mask to take sips of water, after Judge Alison Nathan read out the verdicts, reached after five full days of deliberation by the jury.

Afterwards, Maxwell's attorney, Bobbi Sternheim, said her legal team was already working on an appeal and they were "confident that she will be vindicated".

"We firmly believe in Ghislaine's innocence. Obviously, we are very disappointed with the verdict," Sternheim told reporters outside the courthouse.

Sex trafficking of minors carries a maximum 40-year sentence. The lesser charges have terms of five or 10 years. Maxwell was found not guilty of one count - enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.

Nathan offered her "sincere thanks" to the jury for their service, adding that they served with "diligence".

Maxwell walked out of the courtroom into detention as she has done every day of the month-long trial. She was not handcuffed and will return to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

No date was set for her sentencing.

US Attorney Damian Williams welcomed the verdict, saying Maxwell had been found guilty of "the worst crimes imaginable - facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children."

"The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done," Williams said in a statement.

The charges against Maxwell stemmed from 1994 to 2004.

Two of Epstein's alleged victims said they were as young as 14 when Maxwell allegedly began grooming them and arranging for them to give massages to Epstein that ended in sexual activity.

One, identified only as "Jane," detailed how Maxwell recruited her at summer camp and made her feel "special".

She said sexual encounters with Epstein became routine, with Maxwell sometimes present.

Another, going by "Carolyn," said she was usually paid $300 after sexual encounters with Epstein, often by Maxwell herself.

A third alleged victim was Annie Farmer, now 42, who said Maxwell fondled her breasts when she was a teenager at the New Mexico ranch owned by Epstein.

Epstein, 66, killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting his own sex crimes trial. Maxwell, his lover-turned-close friend, was arrested the following year.

She pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Prosecutor Alison Moe said Maxwell was "the key" to Epstein's scheme of enticing young girls to give him massages, during which he would sexually abuse them.

They cited bank records showing that she received $30 million from Epstein between 1999 and 2007 as evidence that her participation was motivated by money.

"They were partners in crime," Moe said.

Maxwell's defense team questioned the accusers' ability to recollect quarter-century-old events and argued that Maxwell was being used as a "scapegoat" for Epstein's crimes after he evaded justice.

Maxwell declined to take the stand during the trial.

Her siblings Kevin, Isabel and Christine were in the front row in court as their sister's fate was read out.

Pursued by reporters as they left, the family declined to comment, with Kevin Maxwell saying they would issue a statement on the verdict later.

Virginia Giuffre, who alleges Epstein lent her out for sex with his wealthy and powerful associates, including Britain's Prince Andrew - after Maxwell introduced the royal to the financier - welcomed the verdict in a statement on Twitter.

"My soul yearned for justice for years and today the jury gave me just that. I will remember this day always," said Giuffre, who was not an accuser in the case.

"I hope that today is not the end but rather another step in justice being served. Maxwell did not act alone. Others must be held accountable. I have faith that they will be," she said.

Prince Andrew denies the accusation.

Maxwell still faces two counts of perjury related to testimony she gave in 2016 in a defamation case filed by Giuffre.

Boebert sparks outcry claiming Ilhan Omar faked tears over racist attacks

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 22 December 2021

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WASHINGTON - Lauren Boebert has sparked outcry after claiming Ilhan Omar faked tears and “played the victim”, barely a month after apologising over a comment widely considered racist and Islamophobic, writes the London-based The Independent.

A month after the Colorado Republican issued an apology to anyone in the Muslim community offended by her words, she accused the Democrat of playing the victim in order to help her fund-raising efforts.

“She needed more fundraising for this quarter. This quarter was a little slow for her,” she said. “So let’s go on TV, shed some tears, and you know, play the victim.”

Ms Boebert, a favourite among the more hardline member of the Republican Party and who frequently poses with one of her guns, made the comments as an interview before going on stage at an event in Arizona, organised by Turning Point USA, a youth conservative student movement for “freedom, free markets and limited government”.

Last month, Ms Boebert issued an apology - though without naming Ms Omar - after she likened the Democrat to a bomb-carrying terrorist.

Ms Boebert, a favourite among the more hardline member of the Republican Party and who frequently poses with one of her guns, made the comments as an interview before going on stage at an event in Arizona, organised by Turning Point USA, a youth conservative student movement for “freedom, free markets and limited government”.

Last month, Ms Boebert issued an apology - though without naming Ms Omar - after she likened the Democrat to a bomb-carrying terrorist.

Ilam Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, said that Ms Boebert “refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comment”.

She said: “She instead doubled down on her rhetoric and I decided to end the unproductive call.”

In turn, Ms Boebert said she had told Ms Omar: “I have reflected on my previous remarks, now as a strong Christian woman who values faith deeply I never want anything I say to offend someone's religion.”

She confirmed Ms Omar had asked for a public apology — and that instead she had challenged Omar to issue an apology of her own for some of the comments she has made in the past.

In a statement, Ms Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, said that Ms Boebert “refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comment”.

She said: “She instead doubled down on her rhetoric and I decided to end the unproductive call.”


Leftist millennial vows to remake Chile after historic win

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 20 December 2021

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By PATRICIA LUNA and JOSHUA GOODMAN

SANTIAGO, Chile — Former leftist student leader Gabriel Boric will be under quick pressure from his youthful supporters to fulfill his promises to remake Chile after the millennial politician scored a historic victory in the country’s presidential runoff election.

Boric spent months traversing Chile, vowing to bring a youth-led inclusive government to attack nagging poverty and inequality that he said are the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The bold promise paid off. With 56% of the votes, Boric on Sunday handily defeated his opponent, far right lawmaker José Antonio Kast, and at age 35 was elected Chile’s youngest modern president.

Amid a crush of supporters in downtown Santiago, Boric vaulted atop a metal barricade to reach the stage where he used the indigenous Mapuche language to initiate a victory speech to thousands of mostly young supporters.

“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” Boric said. “We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.”

In his speech, the bearded, bespectacled president-elect highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in the world’s largest copper producing nation.

He also called for an end to Chile’s private pension system — the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by Pinochet.

It’s an ambitious agenda made more challenging by a gridlocked congress and ideological divisions recalling the ghosts of Chile’s past that came to the fore during the bruising campaign.

Kast, who has a history of defending Chile’s past military dictatorship, finished ahead of Boric by two percentage points in the first round of voting last month. But his attempt to portray his rival as a puppet of his Communist Party allies who would upend Latin America’s most stable, advanced economy fell flat in the head-to-head runoff

Still, in a model of democratic civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign, Kast immediately conceded defeat, tweeting a photo of himself on the phone congratulating his opponent on his “grand triumph.” He then later traveled personally to Boric’s campaign headquarters to meet with his rival.

And outgoing President Sebastian Pinera, a conservative billionaire, held a video conference with Boric to offer his government’s full support during the three-month transition. That will follow a runoff that saw 1.2 million more Chileans cast ballots than in the first round and raise turnout to nearly 56%, the highest since voting stopped being mandatory in 2012.

“It’s impossible not to be impressed by the historic turnout, the willingness of Kast to concede and congratulate his opponent even before final results were in, and the generous words of President Pinera,” said Cynthia Arnson, head of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center in Washington. “Chilean democracy won today, for sure.”

In Santiago’s subway, where a fare hike in 2019 triggered a wave of nationwide protests that exposed the shortcomings of Chile’s free market model, young supporters of Boric waved flags emblazoned with the candidate’s name while jumping and shouting as they headed downtown for his victory speech.

“This is a historic day,” said Boris Soto, a teacher. “We’ve defeated not only fascism, and the right wing, but also fear.”

Boric will become Chile’s youngest modern president when he takes office in March and only the second millennial to lead in Latin America, after El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Only one other head of state, Giacomo Simoncini of the city-state San Marino in Europe, is younger.

The new government is likely to be closely watched throughout Latin America, where Chile has long been a harbinger of regional trends.

It was the first country in Latin America to break with U.S. dominance during the Cold War and pursue socialism with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. It then reversed course a few years later when Pinochet’s coup ushered in a period of right-wing military rule that quickly launched a free market experiment throughout the region.

Boric’s goal is to introduce a European-style social democracy that would expand economic and political rights to attack nagging inequality without veering toward the authoritarianism embraced by so much of the left in Latin America, from Cuba to Venezuela. It’s a task made more urgent by the coronavirus pandemic, which sped up the reversal of a decade of economic gains.

Boric was able to prevail by expanding beyond his base in the capital, Santiago, and attracting voters in rural areas. For example, in the northern region of Antofagasta, where he finished third in the first round of voting, he trounced Kast by almost 20 points.

Also key to his victory were Chilean women, a key voting bloc who feared that a Kast victory would roll back years of steady gains. Kast, 55, a devout Roman Catholic and father of nine, has a long record of attacking Chile’s LGBTQ community and advocating more restrictive abortion laws.

Boric, in his victory speech, promised that Chile’s women will be “protagonists” in a government that seeks to “leave behind once and for all the patriarchal inheritance of our society.”