Ghislaine Maxwell: prosecutors request Friday
court appearance in New York
British woman accused of grooming underage girls for
Jeffrey Epstein labelled as ‘extreme risk of flight’
Associated
Press in New York
Mon 6 Jul
2020 10.40 BSTFirst published on Mon 6 Jul 2020 10.19 BST
Prosecutors
in the US have asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in New York
for Ghislaine Maxwell, the British former confidante of Jeffrey Epstein who is
accused of grooming underage girls to be sexually abused by the late US
financier.
Maxwell was
arrested on Thursday at a $1m estate in Bradford, New Hampshire. She has been
detained without bail after agreeing to be moved to New York. Prosecutors have
labelled her an “extreme risk of flight” and said they want her jailed until
trial.
In a letter
to a judge on Sunday, prosecutors say they communicated with Maxwell’s defence
lawyer, Christian Everdell, who would like a Friday bail hearing after written
arguments are submitted by both sides Thursday and Friday. She will also be
arraigned at the hearing.
An email
seeking comment was sent to Everdell.
Maxwell,
58, has previously repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and called some claims
against her “absolute rubbish”.
Prosecutors
said they expected the US marshals service to transport Maxwell to New York
early this week.
Maxwell has
been indicted on multiple charges, including that she conspired to entice girls
as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 through
1997 at his residences in New York City, Florida and New Mexico and at her
residence in London. Prosecutors say the charges carry a potential penalty of
up to 35 years in prison.
Epstein
killed himself in a Manhattan jail last August while he awaited trial on
federal sex trafficking charges.
Acting US
attorney Audrey Strauss told a news conference on Thursday the investigation
was continuing as the government sought to hold anyone it found to have aided
Epstein accountable.
The arrest
of Maxwell, a citizen of the US, France and the UK, came after she was
described in allegations by some of Epstein’s victims as his chief enabler and
someone who recruited and groomed young girls for abuse. Prosecutors say
Maxwell had both a personal and professional relationship with Epstein.
Authorities
alleged she sometimes hired girls to give him massages before joining as
Epstein tried to engage the girls in sex acts.
Prosecutors
last week outlined some arguments to keep Maxwell detained. They cited her
wealth, saying she had access to over $20m in 15 bank accounts in recent years,
along with her extensive international ties and the likelihood of a lengthy
prison sentence if she was convicted.
Evidence in
the case included detailed corroborated information from multiple victims,
along with documents including flight records, diary entries and business
records, prosecutors said.
Since Epstein
was arrested in July 2019, Maxwell had been in hiding in locations in New
England, sometimes masking her location by changing her phone number and
listing her name as “G Max”, prosecutors said.
Over the
weekend, pictures emerged of Maxwell and the actor Kevin Spacey sitting on
thrones belonging to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh during a visit to
Buckingham Palace in 2002.
Maxwell is
a close friend of Prince Andrew, who visited Epstein at his homes in New York
and elsewhere. The prince has been accused of having sex with a girl provided
by Epstein, Virginia Giuffre, when she was 17 – a claim he categorically
denies.
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