The former associate and girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, is under fire from nearly three million pages of evidence in the sex trafficking case in which she allegedly groomed underage girls for the New York financier to abuse. What exactly did this new evidence further reveal?
According to Newsweek, US attorney Audrey Strauss wrote a letter to the court that read, “As the Court is aware, the Government has produced to the defendant more than 2.7 million pages of discovery pursuant to the Government’s various discovery obligations.” This evidence only emerged as the prosecution objected to a subpoena which was submitted by Maxwell’s lawyers to the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner (BSF), which is also the law firm that represents Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Giuffre as well as a number of other Epstein victims.
The original indictment against Maxwell was related to alleged crimes that were committed during the 1990s, but new information indicates that abuse and sex trafficking of, in one particular case a 14 year old girl reffered to as ‘Minor Victim-4’ in court, while being paid for it, actually continued until as recently as 2004. In July 2020, Maxwell was then arrested nearly a year after Epstein was charged and detained himself. About a month after his arrest however, he was found unresponsive in his jail cell and declared dead by suicide.
The evidence involved in the case obviously consists of a huge amount of personal information regarding all parties involved, as to be expected, and Strauss requested in a court filing that any evidence that is released be kept confidential to protect the Epstein victims. “To the extent the defendant has obtained or will obtain sensitive information about victims or witnesses, it should be treated as ‘confidential’ under the protective order much like other such information in this case.”
In November of 2020, Maxwell’s lawyer had complained that she was not given enough time to prepare her case while in prison, Newsweek reports on the letter submitted to court that said “given the voluminous discovery in this case, the most recent production alone being 1.2 million documents, the time accorded Ms. Maxwell remains inadequate for her to review and prepare the defense of her life.” Her lawyers bid for Maxwell to be granted bail in order to better prepare, and now those 1.2 million pages of evidence against her have now increased to 2.7 million. She was also the first New York City inmate to get an in-prison visit from a lawyer since the global pandemic began, reports say.
Fast forward to March 2021, a new indictment was filed which claims that Maxwell was “discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein.” Until this new evidence has been released, she had denied previous charges and is now expected to enter a plea later this year. According to The Independent, she is awaiting trial in a New York prison.
