Ghislaine Maxwell to appear in court via video
feed for arraignment in trafficking case
Maxwell faces up to 35 years in federal prison
Prosecutors are fighting a bail request by insisting
she is a flight risk
Victoria
Bekiempis
Tue 14 Jul
2020 06.00 BSTLast modified on Tue 14 Jul 2020 07.58 BST
Ghislaine
Maxwell will appear in court on Tuesday.
Ghislaine
Maxwell is due to appear on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court via video feed
for arraignment and bail arguments involving her alleged participation in
Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of minor girls.
The British
friend of Epstein is requesting bail, while prosecutors are fighting her
release before trial.
Maxwell,
58, was arrested on 2 July at her Bradford, New Hampshire estate. She is
charged in a 17-page indictment with conspiracy to entice minors to travel to
engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in
illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in
criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in
criminal sexual activity, and perjury. If convicted, Maxwell faces up to 35
years in federal prison.
Maxwell has
repeatedly denied wrongdoing, and her lawyers have said she “vigorously denies
the charges” and is “entitled to the presumption of innocence”.
In court
papers Monday, prosecutors opposed Maxwell’s bail request by insisting that she
is an “extreme risk of flight” owing to her vast wealth and background. Maxwell
is a citizen of France, the UK and the US, possessing passports for all three
countries. France, they noted in court papers, “does not extradite its citizens
to the United States pursuant to French law”.
Maxwell,
they further claimed, “appears to be skilled at living in hiding”. When FBI
agents arrived at her “remote” 156-acre property, Maxwell “tried to flee”.
Agents discovered a “cellphone wrapped in tin foil” which they maintain was “a
seemingly misguided effort to evade detection … by law enforcement”.
Prosecutors
also said they learned that Maxwell “had hired a security company staffed with
former members of the British military to guard the defendant at the New
Hampshire property, in rotations”.
“There are
no conditions of bail that would assure the defendant’s presence in court
proceedings in this case. Accordingly, any application for bail should be
denied,” they wrote.
Maxwell’s
attorneys wrote in prior court papers that she “vigorously denies the charges”
and “intends to fight them”. In asking for bail, Maxwell’s lawyers contended
that Covid-19 presents a danger to Maxwell and limits her legal defense. They
insist that she’s not a flight risk, and remained out of public view to avoid
the media following Epstein’s arrest last July. Epstein killed himself in
federal jail last August.
“As this
court has noted, the Covid-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented health risk
to incarcerated individuals, and Covid-19-related restrictions on attorney
communications with pre-trial detainees significantly impair a defendant’s
ability to prepare her defense,” Maxwell’s lawyers wrote Friday in their
argument for bail. “Simply put, under these circumstances, if Ms Maxwell
continues to be detained, her health will be at serious risk and she will not
be able to receive a fair trial.”
They are
asking the judge to release Maxwell on a $5m personal recognizance bond
co-signed by six financially responsible individuals, backed by real property
in the UK worth more than $3.75m. Maxwell’s legal team also proposed limiting
the onetime jet-setter’s travel to the New York City region, turning in all her
passports, requiring home confinement in New York City with GPS location
monitoring, and curtailing visitors to immediate family, close friends and
attorneys.
Prosecutors
also revealed in their court filing that they expect “one or more victims will
exercise their right to be heard” at Maxwell’s arraignment, “and will urge the
court not to grant bail”.
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