At the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in New York, prosecutors on Friday finished their questioning of the alleged victims of the former partner of US financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sex crimes and died in prison in 2019.
After ten days of debates to try to identify the role played by the former British socialite with the wealthy Jeffrey Epstein, the trial should give way to the defense from next week.
The debates, the deliberation of the jury until the verdict were to last until mid-January but the trial is accelerating and it could end earlier.
Ghislaine Maxwell, 59 – British, American and French and daughter of press magnate Robert Maxwell – has been on trial since November 29, accused of providing her former companion and collaborator, Epstein, with underage girls so that he sexually exploits them.
Accused of being a “tout,” she has been detained in New York City since her arrest in the summer of 2020 – a year after Epstein’s prison suicide. She pleads not guilty to all counts for which she faces life imprisonment.
She has not expressed herself once at her trial where she seems rather comfortable, in particular by speaking with her lawyers.
The incriminated facts date back to 1994-2004 and four women – “Jane”, “Kate”, “Carolyn” and, Friday, Annie Farmer, 42, the only one to speak without a pseudonym – testified in federal court in Manhattan. of their life damaged by forced sexual relations with Epstein, when they were minors, often in the presence of Maxwell.
As for the other three alleged victims, Annie Farmer recounted the same scenario: a warm first meeting with Mrs. Mawxell, who proposed to these girls aged 14 to 17, fragile and penniless, to meet Epstein under the pretext of helping them financially.
After an initial invitation, notably in Epstein’s villa in Palm Beach in Florida, also in New Mexico or in New York, the young girls were encouraged by Maxwell to undress, then to give Epstein massages which ended irreparably. through sexual acts.
Relationships have for some lasted years with the Epstein-Maxwell couple and one of the witnesses said that she was paid $ 300 for each act of sex.
Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers, who could encourage her to speak out, have for ten days quoted psychologists pointing to the fact that the victims’ testimonies are a quarter of a century old, and therefore likely to contain inaccuracies.
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