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| Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in New York, New York, on 15 March 2005. |
Ghislaine
Maxwell and others linked to Jeffrey Epstein under FBI investigation
Principal focus
of inquiry is British socialite and other ‘people who facilitated’ Epstein’s
allegedly illegal behavior
Edward
Helmore and agencies
Fri 27 Dec
2019 18.06 GMTFirst published on Fri 27 Dec 2019 15.28 GMT
The FBI is
investigating the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and several other people
linked to the US financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting
trial on sex trafficking charges, two law enforcement sources familiar with the
investigation told Reuters.
They said a
principal focus of the FBI’s investigation is Maxwell, a longtime associate of
Epstein, and other “people who facilitated” Epstein’s allegedly illegal
behavior.
Maxwell,
who has been named in several civil lawsuits claiming she played a key role in
Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking scheme, has not been accused of criminal
wrongdoing. Her lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
The FBI
also is following up on many leads received from women who contacted a hotline
the agency set up at its New York field office in the wake of Epstein’s arrest
in July, the sources said.
One of the
sources said the investigation remains at an early stage.
The sources
declined to give further details or identify the people they are looking at
apart from Maxwell. However, they said the FBI has no current plans to
interview Britain’s Prince Andrew, a friend of Epstein’s who stepped down from
his public duties in November because of what he called his “ill-judged”
association with the well-connected money manager.
Contacted
by the Guardian, an FBI spokeswoman declined comment on the report.
A
representative for the British royal family said that whether the agency
interviewed Andrew was “a matter for the FBI”.
Gloria
Allred, the lawyer for five of the pedophile financier’s alleged victims, all
of whom have spoken to law enforcement, said in a statement that news reports
that the FBI is investigating Maxwell “are not surprising” because “Ms Maxwell
was part of Jeffrey Epstein’s inner circle for many years.”
“Since the
US justice department has stated that it would continue their investigation
into anyone who may have knowingly conspired with Epstein to sex traffic
underage girls, it would be logical that the FBI would want to interview anyone
in Epstein’s inner circle, including Ms Maxwell, to determine who may or may
not have assisted Epstein in committing his crimes against children,” she said.
Allred
continued: “Jeffrey Epstein could not have committed his crimes without the
assistance of others. If there is sufficient evidence to prove that others may
have criminal culpability, then they should be charged and be accountable in a
court of law.”
Epstein’s
suicide in August, at age 66, came a little over a month after he was arrested
and charged with trafficking dozens of underage girls as young as 14 from at
least 2002 to 2005. Prosecutors said he recruited girls to give him massages,
which became sexual in nature.
He had
pleaded not guilty.
Following
Epstein’s arrest, the FBI urged anyone who had been victimized by Epstein or
had additional information to call the agency’s hotline.
The US
attorney general, William Barr, vowed to carry on the case against anyone who
was complicit with the financier.
“Any
co-conspirators should not rest easy,” he said in August.
The sources
said they had received numerous tips from the hotline, which they are looking
into.
Virginia
Giuffre, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, has said in a civil lawsuit that
Maxwell recruited her into Epstein’s circle, where she claims Epstein forced
her to have sex with him and friends including Andrew.
Maxwell has
called Giuffre’s allegations lies. Giuffre in response filed a defamation suit
against Maxwell in 2015.
Giuffre
repeated the claims about the prince in a BBC interview that aired this month.
Andrew, 59,
also categorically denies the accusations and has said he has no recollection
of meeting Giuffre, who was previously named Virginia Roberts.
The two law
enforcement sources said the FBI’s principal focus is on people who facilitated
Epstein and that Andrew does not fit into that category. They did not rule out
the possibility that the FBI would seek to interview Andrew at a later date.
At the time
of Epstein’s arrest last year, Maxwell, understood to be “Employee No 1” in the
financier’s federal indictment on sex trafficking charges, had been accused by
at least three women in affidavits and court filings of recruiting and training
young women for sex with Epstein. In two of those lawsuits, Maxwell was herself
accused of sexual assault.
But despite
being identified by one accuser of being Epstein’s “highest-ranking employee”,
she remains outside a 2007 non-prosecution deal Epstein made with US federal
prosecutors in Miami that named four women as potential co-conspirators.
In a 2009
deposition, a former house manager for Epstein testified that Maxwell was his
“main girlfriend” starting around 1992. Three years later, Epstein renamed a
Palm Beach company he controlled to Ghislaine Corp, which was dissolved in
1998, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In civil
lawsuit depositions against Epstein in 2009 and 2010, household employees also
claimed Maxwell was a central figure in his private life with responsibility
for hiring, firing and supervising household staff, while directing a retinue
of “massage therapists”.
In a 2006
affidavit, Maria Farmer claimed she was assaulted by Maxwell and Epstein – an
incident she later reported to New York police and the FBI. Another civil
litigant, Sarah Ransome claimed Maxwell ordered her to have sex with Epstein.
Lawyers
for Maxwell wrote in a March 2018 filing that Ransome voluntarily entered the
relationship, echoing an earlier claim by Epstein that Ransome was not a victim
of sex-trafficking and that the relationship was between consensual adults. The
lawsuit was settled in 2018.
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