Ghislaine Maxwell sentenced to 20 years in Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case
By Ben Feuerherd, Elizabeth Rosner and Ben Kesslen
Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 in prison Tuesday for her role in helping powerful pedophile Jeffrey Epstein abuse young girls, capping off a dramatic fall from grace for the British socialite turned-convicted sex-trafficker.
US District Judge Alison Nathan said the sentence of 240 months was “sufficient and not greater than necessary,” for Maxwell, who earlier addressed the court and told her victims, “I am sorry for the pain that you experienced.”
“I hope my conviction and harsh incarceration brings you closure,” said Maxwell, 60, wearing blue jail scrubs, her dark brown locks cut in a bob.
Maxwell’s face remained inscrutable as she learned her fate, and she left the courtroom without speaking to her siblings, who were sitting in the row behind her.
Her attorneys requested that she serve out her time at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, the low-security women’s lockup that served as the inspiration for Netflix’s “Orange Is The New Black.”
Her sentencing marked the end of the federal criminal proceedings against her in the Southern District of New York, where she was brought after her arrest at a sprawling New Hampshire estate in July 2020. She could potentially get credit for the two years she’s already spent behind bars, or have some of her time shaved off for good behavior.
Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, will pay 20 years for her crimes against multiple young women.AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams
“Today’s sentence holds Ghislaine Maxwell accountable for perpetrating heinous crimes against children,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement. “This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice.”
Outside the courthouse, Maxwell’s attorney Bobbi Sternheim said her client would appeal, saying she had been, “sentenced to an extremely long term.”
The heiress — who spent much of her life hobnobbing with the rich and famous — learned her fate months after she was convicted of grooming and trafficking teenagers for Epstein, a wealthy financier and her onetime boyfriend.
Four women testified at her widely-publicized trial in Manhattan federal court — and two of them and several other accusers also addressed the court Tuesday, calling on the judge to lock Maxwell up and throw away the key.
“Maxwell had many opportunities to come clean, but instead continued to make choices that caused more harm,” Annie Farmer, who testified at trial, wrote in a statement filed ahead of the hearing.
Virginia Giuffre Roberts, who has long accused Maxwell and Epstein of trafficking her to Britain’s Prince Andrew, described Maxwell as “like a wolf in sheep’s clothing” in her letter to the court.
“Ghislaine, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell,” she wrote. “You deserve to be trapped in a cage forever, just like you trapped your victims.”
Prosecutors had asked US District Judge Alison Nathan to slap Maxwell with between 30 to 55 years in prison, effectively a life sentence.
Maxwell’s defense attorneys, meanwhile, had begged for leniency, saying she should get no more than four to five years, while probation officials recommended 20. Maxwell has denied that she abused anyone.
The disgraced socialite has remained locked up in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center for nearly two years since her bust and throughout her monthlong trial, which ended with her conviction on Dec. 29, 2021.
Federal prosecutors portrayed Maxwell as a “sophisticated predator” who was inextricably linked to Epstein, including in his pursuit of girls to sexually abuse from 1994 to 2004.
“Maxwell was Jeffrey Epstein’s right hand,” Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe said in her closing statement on Dec. 20.
“Maxwell and Epstein were partners,” she said. “They were partners in crime who sexually exploited young girls together.”
Maxwell’s attorneys argued that she was being used as a scapegoat for the government’s inability to prosecute Epstein, who died in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by the New York’s Medical Examiner’s Office.
During the trial, prosecutors detailed how Maxwell and Epstein, who dated in the 1990s, preyed on poor, vulnerable teens, luring them into their orbit with the promise of cash and adventure.
“Selecting these girls was predatory behavior. Maxwell and Epstein picked vulnerable girls,” Moe said.
One of the victims who testified at trial, a woman who used the pseudonym Carolyn, told jurors she was sexually abused by Epstein more than 100 times beginning when she was 14 years old. She said she was introduced to the duo by Giuffre, and first met them at Epstein’s palatal Palm Beach, Florida, estate.
On the stand, Carolyn recalled the first time she visited the wealthy pervert’s mansion, telling the jury that Maxwell instructed Giuffre, “You can bring her upstairs and show her what to do.”
The teens then massaged Epstein as he lay nude, face down on a table before he turned over and had sex with Giuffre in front of Carolyn, she testified.
Carolyn said she was paid $300 that day – and for every massage she gave Epstein after that.
“Something sexual happened every single time,” she told jurors.
Another victim who testified under the pseudonym Kate told jurors that Maxwell touted her relationships with rich and powerful men, who she met through Epstein and her late father, the corrupt publishing baron Robert Maxwell.
The Oxford-educated heiress “seemed to know everybody,” Kate told the jury.
“She was friends with Prince Andrew, friends with Donald Trump. Sometimes their names would just come up or she would be talking on the phone about them with me present,” Kate said.
These relationships, prosecutors charged, were the reason Maxwell and Epstein got away with their crimes for so long.
That ended with the four accusers, now grown women, testifying against the predator and helping secure her conviction with a unanimous verdict on five of six counts, including the most serious, sex-trafficking, relating to the allegations of Carolyn.
“The defendant never thought that those teenage girls would have the strength to report what happened to them,” Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey told jurors at the close of the trial. “In her eyes, they were just trash.”
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