Jeffrey Epstein friend Ghislaine Maxwell arrested on child sex abuse conspiracy, perjury charges

Maxwell is the first person charged in connection with Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of underage girls other than him.

Epstein’s victims have called for Maxwell’s arrest ever since Epstein was charged last July. 

A former girlfriend of Epstein, who was once paid to manage his properties, Maxwell has long been accused by victims of helping him to acquire a steady stream of young women to satisfy his compulsive obsession with receiving several “massages” each day.

She was arrested at around 8:30 a.m. in Bradford, New Hampshire, after having returned to the United States at some point.

“More recently we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago,” said William Sweeney, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York office, at the press conference.

The 156-acre property where Maxwell was caught was bought for $1 million in December by a limited liability corporation that was anonymized to hide the identity of the person or persons behind the purchase, according to prosecutors.

The real estate agent who handled the sale for the seller told CNBC that she was unaware of the buyer’s actual identity because the buyer’s representatives would not disclose it.

Maxwell, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, is charged in the indictment helping Epstein in the mid-1990s recruit and groom victims that were underage girls, at least one as young as 14 years old, so that he could sexually abuse them at his residences in New York City, Palm Beach, Florida, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as at Maxwell’s home in London.

The conduct charged in the case against Maxwell predates by a decade or more the conduct that Epstein was charged with last year.

“In some instances, Maxwell was present for and participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims,” the indictment says.

It also says that while under oath, she “repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct” during a legal deposition in 2016 as part of a lawsuit.

Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting the case, said at a press conference that Maxwell had lied under oath about her conduct with the victims “because the truth was almost unspeakable.”

“She pretended to be a woman [the victims] could trust, all the while they were setting them up to be abused by Epstein and in some cases by Maxwell herself,” Strauss said.

Strauss also said her office “would welcome” Prince Andrew “coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement” about his relationship with Epstein and Maxwell.

Andrew previously has denied a claim by one of Epstein’s victims that he had sex with her at the direction of Maxwell.

Straus, echoing the claims made in the indictment, said that Epstein and Maxwell had a “method” for luring young girls into their clutches, so that they could give “sexualized massages” to Epstein, which sometimes evolved into sex with Epstein and with Maxwell on ocassion.

That method involved Epstein and Maxwell “briefriend young girls” by asking them about their lives,” taking them to movies, and “treating them to shopping trips,” Strauss said.

“Maxwell encouraged girls to accept Epstein’s offers to pay for their travel and education … making them feel indebted to Epstein,” the prosecutor said.

To further groom the victims, “Maxwell would discuss sexual topics with the victims, and undress in front of them and be present for sex acts,” Strauss said. “Maxwell’s presence as an adult woman[during massages of Epstein by the victims] would put the girls at ease.”

The top prosecutor and the FBI urged other people who may have been abused by Epstein to contact them.

In their motion seeking Maxwell’s detention without bail, prosecutors wrote that she “has effectively been in hiding for approximately a year, since an indictment against Epstein was unsealed in July 2019.”

The filing say that Maxwell  has 15 different bank accounts, and has “made intentional efforts to avoid detection, including moving locations at least twice, switching her primary phone number (which she registered under the name “G Max”) and email address, and ordering  packages for delivery with a different person listed on the shipping label.” 

The motion also said that Epstein, between 2007 and 2011, transferred more than $20 million from his own accounts to Maxwell, and that she later sent him back some of those funds.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/fbi-arrests-jeffrey-epstein-friend-ghislaine-maxwell-sex-case.html