Epstein case. Ghislaine Maxwell sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking of minors

The former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted at the end of 2021 of sex trafficking of minors on behalf of the deceased American financier Jeffrey Epstein, was sentenced on Tuesday June 28, 2022 to 20 years in prison by a New York court.

“Today’s sentence holds Ghislaine Maxwell responsible for committing heinous crimes against children. It sends a strong message: no one is above the law and it’s never too late for justice.”said in a press release Damian Williams, federal prosecutor of the court of Manhattan, where the judge Alison Nathan rendered his judgment.

When Manhattan federal court judge Alison Nathan delivered the sentence, Ghislaine Maxwell, shoulder-length hair, masked and dressed in black pants and a gray shirt, remained almost impassive.

But just before being fixed on her fate, the sexagenarian, imprisoned in New York for already two years, had for the first time expressed her “Sympathy for all the victims” and said to herself “sorry for the pain felt” for sexual crimes committed between 1994 and 2004 against adolescent girls aged 14 to 17.

Ghislaine Maxwell, however, placed the main responsibility on her former companion and accomplice Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in New York in August 2019, “a manipulator (…) who deceived all those who were in his orbit”.

A “total absence of remorse”

Arriving in the morning in front of the gigantic south New York courthouse, one of the accusers of the Maxwell-Epstein couple, Sarah Ransome, had launched: “Yes, Ghislaine must die in prison”. “I spent the last 17 years in my own prison for what she, Jeffrey (Epstein) and all the accomplices did to me. I have been raped several times. Sometimes I was raped three times a day […]. There was a constant influx of girls who were raped over and over again”said the young woman who was not a civil party to the trial.

The 60-year-old had been incarcerated in New York since her arrest in the northeastern United States in the summer of 2020. After her trial last November and December, she faced decades of criminal imprisonment.

His lawyers had filed a request for clemency in mid-June for a sentence of less than 20 years. Even though the legal texts and case law provide for up to 55 years of imprisonment and the prosecutors had said they were counting on at least 30 years for his ” responsibility “ and his “complete lack of remorse” for his sex crimes.

Last attempt on Saturday to escape her fate: Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, had called for a postponement of the sentencing because her client had been placed ” under surveillance “ in prison because of a risk of « suicide ». « Sans justification »according to the defense.

Victims sometimes aged 14

The lawyers had also invoked, in vain, the responsibility and the harmful influence of Robert Maxwell – a father “authoritarian” died in 1991 by mysteriously falling from his yacht – and of Jeffrey Epstein, multimillionaire financier who committed suicide in prison in New York in August 2019 before his trial for sex crimes against minors.

Ghislaine Maxwell, who is British, American and French, was found guilty on December 29 by the Manhattan court, in particular of sex trafficking of underage girls. Some victims were as young as 14 in the 1990s and 2000s.

Her trial had portrayed her as “sophisticated predator” who knowingly acted to attract and seduce young girls and deliver them to Epstein at his residences in Florida, Manhattan, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands.

His meeting with Epstein, the “biggest mistake” of his life

« Jane », « Kate », « Carolyn » and Annie Farmer, 42, the only one to speak without a pseudonym, had revealed to the audience their lives damaged by forced sex with Epstein – first sexual massages – when they were between 14 and 17 years old , often in the presence of Maxwell.

Born and raised in a hyper-privileged environment in the United Kingdom, Ghislaine Maxwell again assured this month via her lawyers to have “had a difficult, traumatic childhood” and have done “the biggest mistake of his life” by meeting Epstein.

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were in a relationship in the early 1990s before becoming professional collaborators and accomplices in their sex crimes for nearly 30 years.

The financier, with powerful economic and political networks in the United States and abroad, was himself accused of having raped young girls but his suicide extinguished the public action against him.

In a separate part of this file with international ramifications, British Prince Andrew, friend of the Maxwell-Epstein pair, sealed an amicable agreement on February 15 – for 13 million dollars according to the Daily Telegraph – with the American Virginia Giuffre, herself the alleged victim of the couple, who accused him of having sexually assaulted her in 2001 when she was a minor.