Jeffrey Epstein case: US prosecutor asked for 30 years in prison for his ex-partner Ghislaine Maxwell

In a document filed with federal court, a US prosecutor requested that the socialist British Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to a sentence of at least 30 years of imprisonment for helping the late child molester Jeffrey Epstein sexually abusing minors.

Maxwell, 60, was found guilty last December of sex trafficking of minors for the then lender. His sentence is scheduled for Tuesday.

For their part, her lawyers pleaded with the court for mercy, after claiming that she had suffered a traumatic childhood and had been wrongfully accused because Epstein had escaped a trial, from commit suicide in a New York prison in 2019.

But in the filing in the New York courthouse Wednesday night, the prosecution said Maxwell should be sentenced from 30 to 55 years of imprisonmentas he showed a “total lack of remorse” for his crimes, Manhattan Court Attorney Damian Williams wrote.

The reasons for the accusation

In his denial, Williams noted that “instead of showing a sign of accountability, the defendant makes a desperate attempt to shift the blame everywhere.”

“Maxwell was an adult making her own choices. She chose to sexually exploit a lot of minors,” she added.

“He chose to conspire with Epstein for years, working as a criminal causing partner devastating damage to vulnerable victims“, concluded the prosecutor.

Maxwell, the Oxford-educated daughter of former British newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, is in jail since his arrest in the summer of 2020.

During the trial, the prosecution stated this Maxwell was “key” in the scheme assembled by Epstein recruiting young people to give them massages, during which he abused them.

The 60-year-old woman was found guilty on five of the six counts who accused her, which can lead to her spending the rest of her days in prison.

In one of the fringes of the same case, one of his friends, the Prince Andrew of England reached an economic deal in February to end an abuse lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed that Epstein and Maxwell pushed her into having sex with the prince when she was a minor.

The allegations against Maxwell

The allegations against Ghislaine Maxwell were based on events that took place between 1994 and 2004. Two of Epstein’s alleged victims testified that they were only 14 when Maxwell started stroking them and to get Epstein to get massageswhich ended with sexual activity.

The defense had insisted that Maxwell was a victim of a vengeful proceeding which was intended to do justice to women who were deprived of the main villain when Epstein committed suicide in 2019 pending trial.

Observers believed the jury deliberations were working in Maxwell’s favor because many of his requests to review statements and evidence went along the same lines as the questions raised by Maxwell’s defense about inconsistency of evidence.

These tests were mainly based on the testimonies of four women – of which three asked and obtained anonymity – who claimed to have been contacted and tricked by Maxwell into moving into some of the villas owned by Jeffrey Epstein and where, under the name of “massages”, they submitted to sexual abuse while they were minors.

Source: AFP