Ghislaine Maxwell should be released on $5m bail say lawyers
Ghislaine Maxwell hadn’t spoken to Jeffrey Epstein for a decade before he killed himself and is the victim of a smear campaign, her lawyers claim as they beg for her to be released on $5million bail so she does not catch COVID-19
- Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, filed a request for her release on bail Friday
- Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend ‘vigorously denies’ charges against her
- Maxwell’s lawyers argued she is not a flight risk and is ‘not Jeffrey Epstein’
- They also said she had not been in contact with pedophile Epstein for more than a decade before he died in a New York prison last year
- Filings in a separate lawsuit show Maxwell and Epstein emailed in 2015
- Her lawyers deny she was in hiding – something prosecutors allege – and say she ‘maintained regular contact’ with the federal government since Epstein’s arrest
- They say she is the victim of a smear campaign of ‘open season’ from the media
- They argue she is at risk of contracting COVID-19 if she stays in the Brooklyn jail
- Her request was filed in the US District Court in Manhattan eight days after her arrest at her luxury home in New Hampshire last week
By Rachel Sharp For Dailymail.com
Published: 14:38 EDT, 10 July 2020 | Updated: 02:10 EDT, 11 July 2020
Ghislaine Maxwell is seeking release on $5million bail, claiming she is ‘not Jeffrey Epstein’, hadn’t contacted the pedophile for more than a decade before he killed himself and is the victim of a smear campaign by the press.
Lawyers for Maxwell, 58, argued Friday for her release as Epstein’s former girlfriend and close associate ‘vigorously denies’ all charges brought against her.
Her request, filed in the US District Court in Manhattan, claims she was not ‘hiding’ from authorities, has not left the US once since Epstein’s 2019 arrest and is not a flight risk.
It also argues she is at risk of contracting COVID-19 if she continues to be held in the Brooklyn jail.
The filing comes eight days after authorities swooped on her luxury home in New Hampshire, where prosecutors say she was hiding out, and charged her with luring underage girls so Epstein could sexually abuse them.
Ghislaine Maxwell, pictured in 2013, is seeking release on $5million bail, claiming she is ‘not Jeffrey Epstein’, hadn’t contacted the pedophile for more than a decade before he killed himself and is the victim of a smear campaign by the press
Maxwell’s lawyers put forward their proposal for her to be released on $5 million bail Friday, secured against property in the UK that is valued at $3.75 million.
They claim in the filing that Maxwell had not been in contact with the pedophile for more than 10 years before his apparent suicide.
These claims come despite filings in a separate lawsuit brought by one of Epstein’s accusers which show evidence of Maxwell and Epstein emailing each other as recently as 2015.
The bail motion also claims Maxwell has been the victim of a smear campaign by the media and that it was the media – and not the authorities – that the suspect had been hiding out from over the last year.
Maxwell was romantically involved with Jeffrey Epstein from around 1992, but then became his ‘right-hand woman’, managing his property empire and, it is alleged, his trafficking of minors
Her bail request (pictured) was filed in the US District Court in Manhattan and claims she was not ‘hiding’ from authorities, is not a flight risk and is at risk of contracting COVID-19 if she continues to be held in the Brooklyn jail
Lawyers for Maxwell, 58, argued Friday for her release as Epstein’s former girlfriend and close associate ‘vigorously denies’ all charges brought against her (bail motion above)
Ankle tag and travel ban if she’s released
Ghislaine Maxwell has asked to be bailed from prison on the following conditions:
- A $5million bond co-signed by two of her sisters and by friends backed up by just under $4million worth of UK property.
- Home confinement at a property within the New York area.
- She will surrender all travel documents to prosecutors.
- She will wear an electronic tag, which means she could be monitored at all times by GPS.
- Visitors to her bail location will be limited to immediate family, close friends and lawyers.
- She will only travel to court and lawyers’ offices.
- Any other travel will require approval, and be limited to the New York area.
They claim she received threats and was hounded by the press after it became ‘open season’ on her after Epstein died.
They argue she has no criminal record, strongly denies all allegations made against her by the multiple women who have come forward and is no danger of being a flight risk.
‘Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client – wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein – even though she’d had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade, had never been charged with a crime or been found liable in any civil litigation, and has always denied any allegations of claimed misconduct,’ her attorney Mark Cohen wrote.
‘Sometimes the simplest point is the most critical one: Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein.’
Cohen continued: ‘Ever since Epstein’s arrest, Ms. Maxwell has been at the center of a crushing onslaught of press articles, television specials, and social media posts painting her in the most damning light possible and prejudging her guilt. The sheer volume of media reporting mentioning Ms. Maxwell is staggering.
‘She has seen helicopters flying over her home and reporters hiding in the bushes.’
The filing denies Maxwell was in hiding and says she has ‘maintained regular contact’ with the federal government since the day after Epstein’s arrest.
This contradicts allegations made by authorities that the British-born socialite had been hiding out in the New Hampshire retreat since last July, where she changed her phone number and email address and ordered delivery packages to a different name.
Maxwell is currently in custody in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (pictured)
The filing comes eight days after authorities swooped on her luxury home in New Hampshire, where prosecutors say she was hiding out, and charged her with luring underage girls so Epstein could sexually abuse them
THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST MAXWELL
THE CHARGES
- Conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts (5 years max sentence)
- Enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts (20 years)
- Conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity (20 years)
- Transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity (10 years minimum, life maximum)
- X 2 counts of Perjury (x 10 years)
THE ‘FACTS’
Prosecutors say Maxwell groomed three girls between 1994 and 1997 for Epstein.
They are not named in the indictment, but she allegedly targeted them in London, Florida, New York and New Mexico.
Maxwell, it is alleged, would befriend the girls by asking them about their life and their schooling. She would put them at ease by taking them to the movies and taking them shopping, winning their trust to later deliver them to Epstein, it’s alleged.
To ‘normalize’ the abuse that would come later, prosecutors say she undressed in front of the girls herself and asked them sexual questions.
She then not only facilitated Epstein abusing them, prosecutors say, but took part in some of it herself.
The alleged sex abuse includes ‘sexualized group massages’.
The indictment also says Maxwell made the girl feel ‘indebted’ to Epstein by encouraging them to take money from him and let him pay for their education and travel.
Prosecutors have called Maxwell – who has US, UK and French passports – an ‘extreme risk of flight’ who should remain detained until trial.
In a court document arguing against bail, they said she had at least 15 bank accounts which she owned or was associated with in the last four years alone.
Maxwell’s application also argues she is at risk of catching coronavirus if she continues to be held behind bars in her ‘hell hole’ Brooklyn jail.
It states her health will be put at ‘serious risk’ – pointing to 68,000 cases of COVID-19 infections among the US prison population in the last month.
The filing also claims she will not be able to receive a fair trial and properly prepare her defense because of restrictions on attorney visits and phone calls amid the pandemic.
The bail conditions put forward by Maxwell’s team say the bond would be co-signed by ‘six financially responsible people… [with] strong ties to Ms. Maxwell’ and will be secured against the property in the UK.
It is not yet clear who all of the six individuals are other than ‘siblings, relatives and friends’ of which two are her sisters and who continue to ‘stand by her’ and ‘do not believe the allegations against her’.
The filing says she would not leave New York, would hand over all travel documents and would be subject to home confinement at a New York property, where she would wear a GPS tracker and only be visited by immediate family, close friends and counsel.
A hearing on the bail request is scheduled to take place Tuesday in Manhattan Federal Court.
Maxwell is currently in custody in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
She is accused of procuring three underage girls for Epstein between 1994 and 1997 and having sex with them herself.
She has previously, in civil court, denied similar allegations.
Maxwell had been lying low since Epstein’s death last year but was picked up from her luxury home in New Hampshire last week.
She was romantically involved with the pedophile from around 1992, but then became his ‘right-hand woman’, managing his property empire and, it is alleged, his trafficking of minors.
Epstein was found hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan last August.
His death was ruled a suicide but his attorneys and some family members claim he was murdered to stop him from sharing what he knows about other high profile, powerful people.
Maxwell was arrested at the luxurious mountain top home – dubbed Tuckedaway – outside tiny Bradford, New Hampshire
