Ghislaine Maxwell was present when Epstein abused
me, accuser testifies
Witness identified as ‘Jane’ alleges Epstein began
sexual abuse when she was 14 and says Maxwell was sometimes in the room
Victoria
Bekiempis in New York
Tue 30 Nov
2021 22.25 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/30/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-jeffrey-epstein-testimony
The first
accuser in Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex trafficking trial testified in
Manhattan federal court on Tuesday that she was just 14 when the British
socialite allegedly lured her into Jeffrey Epstein’s abusive orbit.
This
accuser, who used the name “Jane” in court, alleged that Maxwell was sometimes
present when this abuse occurred and participated on some occasions.
Lawrence
Visoski, Epstein’s former pilot, arrives for Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex
trafficking trial in New York on Tuesday.
Epstein, a
New York financier and convicted sex offender who counted Bill Clinton and
Prince Andrew among his acquaintances, killed himself at a New York City jail
in August 2019, while he was awaiting his own sex-trafficking trial. Maxwell,
59 and the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, was
arrested in New Hampshire in July 2020.
Maxwell is
on trial for six counts related to her alleged involvement in Epstein’s sexual
abuse of minor teenagers. She has pleaded not guilty.
“Did there
come a time in your life when you had sexual contact with Jeffrey Epstein?” the
prosecutor Alison Moe asked when Jane took the stand. The witness answered in
the affirmative.
Moe asked
her age at the time. “Fourteen years old,” she said.
“Did that
happen once or more than once when you were 14 years old?” the prosecution
asked. “More than once,” she replied.
The witness
was asked: “Was there ever anyone else in the room?”
“Yes,” Jane
said.
Moe then
asked: “Who was most frequently in the room when you had sexual contact with
Jeffrey Epstein when you were 14 years old?”
“Ghislaine
Maxwell,” Jane said.
Moe also
elicited testimony from Jane in an effort to establish that Maxwell groomed
Epstein’s victims, by gaining their trust and gradually ratcheting up
inappropriate behavior, to normalize abuse.
Jane told
the court she had met Maxwell in summer 1994, when she attended a renowned
youth arts camp in Michigan, Interlochen Center for the Arts. “We were eating
ice cream,” recalled Jane. “We were sitting around socializing, and we see this
tall, thin woman approach us.”
“She was
walking a cute little Yorkie and the Yorkie came by us, and we asked if we
could pet the dog,” Jane said. “We started chitchatting and petting the dog.
The rest of my classmates had to go to class.”
A man, who
turned out to be Epstein, came and joined Maxwell. Jane said they expressed
interest in her time at camp, telling Jane that they gave kids scholarships;
Jane had recently lost her father to leukemia, and her family had fallen into
bankruptcy.
After they
learned Jane was from Palm Beach, they asked for her mom’s phone number, she
said. She gave them her mom’s contact information. When Jane returned from
Interlochen, they called and invited her and her mother to tea, she said.
During tea
at Epstein’s house, he told Jane’s mother that he wanted to see Jane sing. In
the months following this tea, Jane started spending time with Epstein every
week or two; Maxwell was usually present, she said.
They took
her shopping and to the movies, “casual stuff”, Jane said. There were some
somewhat odd things.
“I
remember, maybe the first time I went to the poolside, and I walked out there
and there was at least four women and Ghislaine, all topless and some of them
were naked,” Jane said. “I was just shocked because I hadn’t seen that before.”
Jane said the
first time Epstein had abused her was at his Palm Beach home, when he was
telling her that she needed to focus on her desired career field in the arts.
“He said: I
know everybody, I know all the agents, I know all the photographers, I know the
owner of Victoria’s Secret, so I can make things happen, but you’ve just got to
be ready for it,” Jane recalled. “The conversation sort of ended abruptly. It
was in his office. He just kind of took my hand and said: ‘Follow me.’”
“He took me
in the pool house and, on the right hand side was this couch, futon-looking
thing, and he just proceeded to pull me over. He sat in the corner and didn’t
say a word,” Jane said. Epstein pulled his pants down. “He pulled me on top of
himself, and proceeded to masturbate on me …”
“I was
frozen in fear. I’d never seen a penis before.”
Sexual
encounters continued over the next three years during almost every visit with
Epstein, about every two weeks, Jane said. When Jane was 14, 15, and 16, there
were times when Maxwell was in the room during Epstein’s abuse; sometimes, she
touched the girl’s breasts, she said.
“There were
hands everywhere,” Jane said of one encounter with Epstein and Maxwell. Jane
described being in group sexual encounters with Epstein, Maxwell, and others.
Jane
repeatedly turned toward the jury as she spoke, and used hand gestures while
speaking. She grabbed a tissue at one juncture, and kept it in her left hand
for the majority of the later part of her testimony. At times, when she talked
about sexual details, she would breath deeply.
Jane’s
voice cracked at two points during her testimony. Jurors appeared to watch
Jane’s testimony closely. Maxwell wrote several notes to her attorneys during
Jane’s testimony, according to a pool report from inside the courtroom.
Jane was
called to testify second, following testimony from Epstein’s longtime pilot,
Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr. During Visoski’s testimony, he discussed Maxwell’s
relationship with Epstein as he saw it, saying Maxwell was “No 2” in Epstein’s
hierarchy, with Epstein “No 1”.
Later,
Visoski said that this related to Maxwell’s handling of Epstein’s non-business
affairs. She ran everything in Epstein’s life, such as managing his properties,
that didn’t relate to his business.
Visoski was
asked by lawyers for Maxwell if he had ever seen Epstein engage in sex acts. “No,”
he said.
The trial continues.
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