After a fortnight of drama, prosecutors at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in Manhattan rested their case on Friday, earlier than expected.
The jury has heard from four key witnesses about how the British socialite allegedly aided Jeffrey Epstein in his abuse of underage girls. Epstein’s former pilots and house staff, as well as police and FBI agents, have also taken the stand.
Maxwell’s defence team will seek to prove her innocence when the trial resumes on Thursday.
Central to the prosecution’s case were two women, one of whom was on trial. The other was not even in court.
An employee and a companion
In a 2016 deposition Maxwell said she was unsure if she was ever Epstein’s girlfriend, but “there were times when I would have liked to think of myself” as that. At the trial, the closeness of their relationship has become a central point of contention, with her lawyers maintaining that while she was Epstein’s “companion” for a while, she was also his employee.
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Epstein was manipulative, he travelled with other women, he kept parts of his life closed off from others, they say.
The prosecution’s most effective argument against this was made with a series of photographs taken from CDs found during a police raid on Epstein’s New York mansion in 2019. The 15 images portrayed Epstein and Maxwell as a couple over many years — on seashores, in restaurants, on a private jet and even in a log cabin at Balmoral.
The jury was not told that the latter photograph was taken on the Queen’s Scottish estate, probably in 1999.
Instead, the pictures were introduced at the trial by an FBI analyst named Kimberly Meder. “It’s a photo from a CD I reviewed from the Epstein and Maxwell investigation”, was all she said of the log cabin shot. “On the left, Jeffrey Epstein; on the right, Ghislaine Maxwell.”
The Oxford graduate is seen nuzzling Epstein’s cheek with adoration in several other photos.
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In one picture, taken on a skiing trip, Epstein appears to be patting Maxwell’s tummy while both smile at the camera.
In a bizarre twist to proceedings, one of Maxwell’s accusers, known only as Carolyn, was asked by a defence lawyer if she had ever seen a picture of the Briton naked and pregnant. She said she had.
One of Epstein’s pilots was earlier asked a similar question but replied in the negative. There was no further explanation for this line of questioning, although it could have been intended to discredit the witness as Maxwell is not known to have had any children.
Annie Farmer alleges that she was brought to Epstein’s New Mexico ranch in 1996, when she was 16. She said Maxwell taught her how to give Epstein a foot massage and later massaged her bare chest. She added that Maxwell and Epstein “were very intimate with each other in terms of touching each other”.
Sometimes they seemed to act like teenagers. Queuing up to go to the cinema and “being playful with each other”, Maxwell “went to pull Epstein’s pants down a little bit”, Farmer said.
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A British witness, testifying under the pseudonym Kate, gave an account of the relationship and Maxwell’s alleged motives in bringing girls to Epstein.
Maxwell told her that Epstein demanded sex three times a day. “She would ask me if I knew anybody who could come and give Jeffrey a blow job because it was a lot for her to do.”
Kate said Maxwell was “almost like a schoolgirl” when she talked with her about sex.
She said that although she was 17 at the time and Maxwell was in her thirties: “I almost felt like she was younger and everything was fun and everything was silly and everything was just very exciting. I understood that her job was to take care of Jeffrey’s needs.”
Maxwell later told Kate about a townhouse she owned in New York, saying that “Jeffrey had got it for her”.
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Prosecutors did not offer evidence of that but they did show the jury bank transfers totalling more than $30 million, sent by Epstein to accounts in Maxwell’s name between 1999 and 2007.
Maxwell’s brother, Ian, revealed on Friday that his sister believes that Epstein was probably “murdered” in a New York jail in August 2019 while he was awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges. The US authorities say his death was a suicide.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre: The woman who accuses Prince Andrew
Although she was not called as a prosecution witness, the shadow of Virginia Roberts Giuffre has featured in parts of the trial.
Giuffre is best known for accusing Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. The prince vehemently denies the claims.
The photos found by police during the raid on Epstein’s New York home and shown to the jury last week included a topless image of Giuffre.
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Not long after the jury was shown the picture, Carolyn, one of Maxwell’s alleged victims, told the court that she had met Giuffre through her boyfriend when she was 14.
“Virginia asked me if I wanted to go make money,” she said. Carolyn said Giuffre explained that they would go and massage a wealthy man in Palm Beach, Florida. Maxwell allegedly greeted them at the house, and sent them upstairs to Epstein’s bathroom where Giuffre undressed and Carolyn asked if she could keep her underwear on.
Epstein came in, “brushed his teeth and then laid face down on the massage table”, she said. They massaged his legs and buttocks, then Giuffre had sex with him while Carolyn sat on a couch in front of them, she said.
Carolyn claims she was paid $300 in hundred-dollar notes. She said Maxwell booked her for more appointments and asked if she would like to travel to Epstein’s Caribbean island.
She said she told Maxwell she was only 14 and “there is no way in hell my mom was going to let me leave the country”.
The jury heard that Maxwell kept on booking Carolyn. She only stopped visiting Epstein at 18, when he started asking if she had any younger friends. “I said ‘No’. And that’s when I realised I was too old.”
All aboard the Lolita Express
Among the images found during the 2019 Epstein raid were three showing Maxwell on a private jet known as the Lolita Express giving the late paedophile financier a foot massage.
Sitting beside Epstein, in a side-on photograph in which Maxwell almost appears to be flashing him, is a man who appears to be Jean-Luc Brunel, the modelling agent who has been charged in France with the rape and assault of minors. Brunel denies any wrongdoing.
Lawrence Visoski, a pilot who worked for Epstein from 1991 until 2019, said that the billionaire and his entourage flew somewhere roughly “every four days”.
He recalled having Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, the violinist Itzhak Perlman, the astronaut and politician Senator John Glenn the actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker as passengers. Plus, of course, Prince Andrew.
Visoski also remembered meeting one of Maxwell’s alleged victims, who testified under the pseudonym Jane, as well as Giuffre.
Visoski and another pilot, David Rodgers, maintained that they thought Jane and Giuffre were adults at the time and said they never saw any unaccompanied minors on their flights.
Rodgers said that Giuffre had flown on Epstein’s private planes 32 times. Maureen Comey, the lead prosecutor, proceeded to go through flight records one by one, showing Epstein, Maxwell and Giuffre flying to the Caribbean, Palm Beach, Canada and then Paris, from there to Spain, Morocco, Britain, Maine, New Jersey and so on.
For each one, Comey asked: “Is Jeffrey Epstein a passenger on this flight?” “Yes,” Rodgers answered.
“Is Ghislaine Maxwell a passenger on this flight?” “Yes.” “Is Virginia Roberts a passenger on this flight?” “Yes”.
Their exchanges forced the jury to contemplate how often Maxwell and Epstein flew with an unaccompanied teenager.
The trial resumes on Thursday.