Epstein confidante moved to NY to face sex abuse charges

Ghislaine Maxwell has been indicted on multiple charges, including that she conspired to entice girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 through 1997.

By Associated Press

Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred Monday to New York to face charges that she recruited women and girls, one as young as 14, for him to sexually abuse, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed.

Prosecutors have asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in Manhattan federal court for Maxwell, 58, who was arrested last week at a $1 million estate she had purchased in New Hampshire.

Maxwell, the daughter of the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was the former girlfriend and longtime close associate of Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail last August while he awaited trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell has been indicted on multiple charges, including that she conspired to entice girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 through 1997.

Several of Epstein’s victims have described Maxwell as his chief enabler, recruiting and grooming young girls for abuse. She has denied wrongdoing and called claims against her “absolute rubbish.”

In a letter to a judge Sunday, prosecutors said they have communicated with Maxwell’s defense lawyer, Christian Everdell, who would like a Friday bail hearing where she will be arraigned.

Prosecutors have said Maxwell “poses an extreme risk of flight.” Maxwell has three passports, is wealthy with lots of international connections, and has “absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence,” they wrote in a memo.

Maxwell is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The jail has had its share of troubles in recent years, but not the specter of Epstein’s suicide.

“Somebody made the conscious decision, ‘let’s not house her where Epstein was housed,'” said Jack Donson, a former prison official who worked for the Bureau of Prisons for more than two decades.

Maxwell is being prosecuted in Manhattan but jailed in Brooklyn, the opposite of what happened with Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan while on trial in Brooklyn last year, prompting closures of the Brooklyn Bridge each day as he was taken to and from court.

Donson, who advises white-collar criminals on what to expect in prison, said the lockup on the Brooklyn waterfront is akin to the federal prison system’s version of a high-rise apartment building — highly secure, with elevators to move inmates from floor-to-floor, air-conditioned cells and limited room for recreation or other activities.

Donson said he’s made frequent visits to the jail and observed staff acting “downright unprofessional” yelling and cursing at inmates. The jail’s former warden, Cameron Lindsay, has said it is “one of the most troubled” facilities in the federal prison system.

A message seeking comment on problems at the Brooklyn jail was left Thursday with the Bureau of Prisons.

A week-long power failure at the Brooklyn jail in January 2019 sparked unrest among shivering inmates and drew concerns from a federal watchdog about the government’s bungled response. In March, the jail had the federal prison system’s first inmate to test positive for coronavirus.

Last month, an inmate died after correctional officers sprayed him with pepper spray. In May, another inmate at the facility died.

The Bureau of Prisons has been the subject of intense scrutiny since Epstein took his own life while in custody in August, which Attorney General William Barr said was the “perfect storm of screw ups.”

The agency has been plagued for years by serious misconduct, violence and staffing shortages so severe that guards often work overtime day after day or are forced to work mandatory double shifts and has struggled recently with an exploding number of coronavirus cases in prisons across the U.S.

Donson said he expects Maxwell will be closely watched while she’s in jail, possibly even with a working camera fixed on her cell, to avoid a repeat of the errors that authorities said led to Epstein’s demise. Under the prison system’s coronavirus protocols, Maxwell faces an immediate 14-day quarantine and testing for the virus.

Jeffrey Epstein