Former Epstein Associate Maxwell Expected at Bail Hearing
Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2020 1:16 pm
FILE - Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell, in New York, July 2, 2020.
Ghislaine Maxwell, former associate and confidant of accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is set to appear at a bail hearing today on charges that she helped Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.
Prosecutors have accused Maxwell of helping Epstein recruit young girls from 1994 to 1997 and lying about her involvement in the abuse in 2016. Epstein died last year in his jail cell. The New York City medical examiner ruled his death a suicide by hanging.
The indictment charges Maxwell with having “assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18.”
Maxwell is expected to plead not guilty to all charges, four of which concern transporting minors for illegal sexual acts, and two of which concern perjury.
The argument against granting Maxwell bail is that she is an “extreme” flight risk and has no purpose for staying in the United States.
Maxwell’s lawyers hope for a bail package with a $5 million bond and home confinement. They argue that her stay at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York puts her at “serious risk” of COVID-19.
Under the proposed bail package, Maxwell would give up her U.S., British and French passports and would subject herself to GPS monitoring.
She faces up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.