Ms. Maxwell was accused of helping Mr. Epstein recruit, groom and then sexually abuse girls, one as young as 14.
Credit...Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan, via Getty ImagesThe girl was 14 years old when she met the financier Jeffrey Epstein and his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, in the 1990s. They tried to become her friend, taking her shopping and to the movies. Ms. Maxwell asked about her family and school.
Then, Ms. Maxwell began
undressing in front of the girl and recruiting her to participate in
sexualized massages of Mr. Epstein, prosecutors said. The pattern
continued for years, as Ms. Maxwell fed Mr. Epstein’s dark desires and
participated in some of the abuse herself, according to a newly unsealed
indictment.
Ms. Maxwell, the daughter of a publishing magnate and once a fixture on New York’s social scene,
was arrested on Thursday in New Hampshire, where the authorities said
she had been hiding. She was charged with luring multiple underage girls
into Mr. Epstein’s orbit.
The arrest
of Ms. Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate,
was the latest twist in a legal saga that has been a source of
international intrigue and conspiracy theories. The case has drawn in
prominent academics, politicians, business leaders and even British
royalty.
Ms. Maxwell’s arrest came almost exactly one year after Mr. Epstein was charged in a federal indictment with
sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of girls and women at his
mansion in Manhattan, his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., and other
locations.
The Indictment of Ghislaine Maxwell
Read the full document of charges against Ms. Maxwell.
A month after his arrest, in August 2019, Mr. Epstein hanged himself
in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan,
where he had been jailed pending trial on sex trafficking charges.
After his death, federal prosecutors said they would continue to
investigate his associates.
For the
past year, Ms. Maxwell, now 58, had been hiding out in various locations
in New England, prosecutors wrote in a memo on Thursday. She switched
her email address and registered a new phone number under the name “G Max.” She ordered packages using a different person’s name for the shipping label.
Most
recently, Ms. Maxwell was living on a 156-acre property in Bradford,
N.H., where she was arrested, prosecutors said. The property was
acquired in an all-cash purchase in December, and prosecutors said the
buyer’s identity had been shielded by a limited liability corporation.
The authorities had been tracking Ms.
Maxwell’s movements and had recently learned about her relocation to the
New Hampshire home, an F.B.I. official said.
The
indictment charged Ms. Maxwell with six counts, including
transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual
activity. She also faces perjury charges for statements she made during a
deposition in 2016 about her role in Mr. Epstein’s alleged sex
trafficking operation.
“Maxwell
enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the
trap that she and Epstein had set for them,” Audrey Strauss, the acting
U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news
conference on Thursday.
Lawrence A. Vogelman, a lawyer for Ms. Maxwell, declined to comment. She has previously denied wrongdoing in civil lawsuits.
The indictment lists three minor victims who prosecutors say were
recruited by Ms. Maxwell from 1994 to 1997, without identifying them by
name. Federal laws allow the government to prosecute sex offenses
committed against minors at any point in the victim’s lifetime.
Ms.
Maxwell appeared Thursday afternoon in federal court in New Hampshire,
where a magistrate judge ordered her detained and sent to New York,
pending further proceedings there.
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