Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in a US prison for recruiting and trafficking teenage girls for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and his high-profile network.
The Epstein scandal, which revealed that the mysterious American financier was involved in the sex trafficking of minors, was one of 2019’s most shocking revelations. Not least because this immensely wealthy and powerful man was intimately connected to dozens of household names from Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein to Donald Trump and Prince Andrew.
Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019 – before his case went to trial – an ending which meant that his victims never saw justice served for his crimes, or his own testimony in court. However, Maxwell, his chief aider and abettor, faced her own month-long trial in June 2022, during which a number of victims gave evidence.
After a worldwide hunt, Maxwell was arrested by the FBI in July 2020.
Cited as Epstein's one-time girlfriend, closest confidante and associate, Maxwell was a phenomenally well-connected socialite and a close friend of Prince Andrew and as of 28 June, an inmate of a US jail cell, guilty of enticement of minors, sex trafficking children and perjury.
During the trial, she made a statement in court, directly addressing her victims as well as referring to herself as one. She said: “The terrible impact on the lives of so many women is difficult to hear and even more difficult to absorb in its scale and it extent. I want to acknowledge their suffering. I empathise deeply with all of the victims in this case. I acknowledge with that I have been a victim of helping Jeffrey Epstein commit these crimes.”
She added that Jeffrey “fooled all of those in his orbit” and that “victims considered him as a godfather, a mentor, a benefactor, a friend, a lover. It is absolutely unfathomable today to think that was how he was viewed contemporaneously. His impact on all those close to him has been devastating. I'm sorry for the pain that you have experienced.”
After the sentencing, her victims welcomed the result but described her statement as a “hollow apology”. Annie Farmer said following the trial: “It felt very powerful to finally have a chance to speak and have my voice on the record and say how her crimes impacted people and myself. Her statement felt like a very hollow apology to me. She did not take responsibility for her crimes that she committed, and it felt like once more than she was trying to do something that benefitted her and not at all about the harm that she caused.”
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But who is Ghislaine Maxwell, and how did she end up meeting Jeffrey Epstein? Read on for the timeline of events:
Media heiress
Ghislaine was born in 1961, the ninth child of the media tycoon Robert Maxwell; former Labour MP and the owner of Mirror Group (a vast publishing house which included the Daily Mirror and OK magazine). She grew up in extreme wealth - her childhood home was a 53 room mansion in Oxfordshire - and was a student at the elite Marlborough College before studying at Oxford.
She was, apparently, her father’s favourite, a fixture on the London and New York party scene of the 80s and 90s, famous for her cropped dark hair and fun, numerous famous friends and outgoing personality. She seemed to work exclusively for her father. He gave her jobs at his publication, The European, as well as making her the director of his football team, Oxford United.
Despite the fact that it was her two elder brothers, Ian and Kevin, who were professionally involved in the day to day running of her father’s business, Robert often had Ghislaine represent him at important events.
In November 1991, Ghislaine’s father fell from his yacht (named The Lady Ghislaine) and was found drowned off the coast of the Canary Islands, although many suspected he had been pushed/jumped. It was then revealed that Robert had stolen £440million from Mirror Group’s pension fund. Ouch.
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Her brothers were arrested - later acquitted - and Ghislaine fled to New York. She maintains her theory that her father was murdered.
Jeffrey’s “girlfriend”
Nobody quite knows how Ghislaine and Jeffrey met but, apparently, from the moment she arrived in New York after her father’s death, she was involved with Epstein – the mysterious but eye-wateringly wealthy financier, who flitted between his New York townhouse, New Mexico ranch, Palm Beach mansion and, yes, his own private island in the Caribbean.
According to most reports, Ghislaine was Jeffrey’s girlfriend and the pair were in a romantic relationship for most of the early 1990s. She was seen with him at many social functions - many with famous names which have now become immortalised in infamous photographs, like one with Donald Trump and Melania in 2000. In 1995, in the grand tradition of controversial men naming things after her, Epstein renamed one of his companies The Ghislaine Corporation.
Court reports cite many Epstein employees knew Ghislaine as ‘the lady of the house’ at many of his properties and she was reportedly in charge of hiring, firing and organising much of Jeffrey’s staff, making some people believe she was also, essentially, the woman in charge of his life. In a Sunday Times report, she was quoted as referring to Epstein’s Palm Beach property as “my house.”
In that same report it was claimed by many of those who knew them, that they may not have had a romantic relationship at all, but perhaps a shadier business deal instead, one that may even involve Robert Maxwell’s missing stolen millions. Yes. The plot thickens. Oh, and just to make things more interesting; here comes the royal connection...
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Ghislaine was also a longtime friend of Prince Andrew and was responsible for introducing him to Epstein – a move that has proven extremely problematic for the prince and the royal family (more on that later). Ghislaine and Jeffrey were hosted by the prince at the Queen’s estate at Sandringham in 2000. It was apparently for Ghislaine’s 39th birthday but – as Andrew was very clear to emphasise in his 2019 BBC interview – it was actually just “a straightforward shooting weekend.”
After Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2008 for soliciting a minor, Ghislaine was rarely seen with him again, though many are unconvinced that their relationship – romantic or otherwise – had stopped. This is despite the fact that Ghislaine had two high profile relationships post Epstein; with tech entrepreneur Ted Waitt (with whom she attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding) and hedge fund CEO Scott Borgerson, as recently as 2019.
Sex Trafficker
Though Ghislaine and Jeffrey’s relationship was often questioned for being mysterious, it was perhaps not outright suspected that it was Ghislaine who was allegedly trafficking young women, often minors, for sex with Jeffrey.
Ghislaine found her name suddenly blasted all over the press when the Epstein scandal broke in 2019 and dozens of his victims came forward. Though he had been arrested and ‘jailed’ for soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, the true scale of his operation – and Ghislaine’s alleged involvement – was not exposed until last year.
When Epstein’s victims began speaking out in 2019, and again in the Netflix documentary Filthy Rich, Ghislaine’s name was a constant feature. She was painted as Epstein’s fixer; the woman who procured countless women for Jeffrey.
Between 2015 and 2020, Ghislaine was battling approximately eight civil lawsuits by victims of Epstein, against both her and Jeffrey. Many were settled financially.
One of these was from Virginia Roberts (Giuffre), who claims that she was trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine and brought to London, specifically for Prince Andrew. Though Andrew strongly denies even meeting Virginia, there is – of course – an infamous photograph of them together which suggests otherwise. Prince Andrew has claimed the photo may have been doctored. The other person in the photograph is Ghislaine Maxwell.
“It is not unusual for the defence to make an application for third party disclosure of a victim’s sensitive and private medical records in criminal proceedings.”
Convict
When the scandal broke, Ghislaine (or Mrs Borgerson, who knows?) went into hiding and let her lawyers deal with the courts in her place. She was reported as living in Massachusetts in the home of Scott Borgerson.
In late 2019, Ghislaine moved to a 156 acre property in New Hampshire, and it was here that she was finally arrested in July 2020. It was stated that she is married – though her spouse remains a secret – and she remained an inmate of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn until her trial in June 2022.
She requested to be placed, instead, in a luxury New York hotel while she waited.
This request was denied.
On 28 June 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $750,000 (£610,000) for her crimes, with the judge stating that her actions had been “heinous and predatory”. It's not yet known which prison she will spend her jail time in, though she's expected to apply to be transferred to a facility in the UK.
