NEW YORK (AP) — Days after Ghislaine Maxwell asked a judge to immediately release her from a 20-year prison sentence, the public release of grand jury transcripts from her sex-trafficking case has returned attention to the victims whose allegations helped land her behind bars.
The release of the transcripts as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing release of its investigative files on Maxwell and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed how an FBI agent told grand jurors about Maxwell’s critical role in Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of girls and young women.
Maxwell, a British socialite and publishing heiress, was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 after four women told a federal jury in New York City about how she and Epstein abused them in the 1990s and early 2000s. Epstein never went to trial. He was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges and killed himself a month later in his cell at a Manhattan federal prison.
Two weeks ago, as the Justice Department prepared to begin releasing what are commonly known as the Epstein files, Maxwell filed a habeas petition, asking a federal judge to release her on the grounds that “substantial new evidence” emerged proving that the constitutional violations tainted her trial.
Maxwell claimed that exculpatory information was withheld and that witnesses lied in their testimony. She filed the petition alone, without the assistance of a lawyer.
This week, the judge, Paul A. Engelmayer, reprimanded Maxwell for failing to redact the victims’ names and other identifying information from her court papers. He said that the future files must be kept sealed and out of public view until they are reviewed and redacted to protect the identities of the victims.
The victims fear that Maxwell will be pardoned
Epstein’s accuser, Danielle Bensky, said the release of the records only increased attention on Maxwell’s crimes among their victims. Bensky said she engaged in daily discussions with about two dozen other victims that make it clear that Maxwell “is a criminal who was 1,000% involved in sexual acts.”
“I’ve heard things that make your blood curdle. I just had a conversation with a survivor last night who said it was the puppets,” said Bensky.
Bensky said she was sexually abused by Epstein twenty years ago. She said she was never personally abused by Maxwell.
Lag and heavily written files
Transcripts of the grand trial proceedings that resulted in Maxwell’s indictment were released this week under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed last month after months of public and political pressure.
The Justice Department has been releasing the records periodically after acknowledging it will miss last Friday’s congressionally-imposed deadline to release all records. Fix delays on the time-consuming process of obscuring victims’ names and other identifying information.
On Wednesday, the department said it may need “a few more weeks” to release the entire trove after suddenly discovering more than a million potentially relevant documents. It was a stunning development after department officials suggested months ago that they already accounted for the vast universe of materials related to Epstein.
Some of Epstein and Maxwell’s grand jury records were initially released with heavy redactions – A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY” – was completely redacted. Updated versions were posted over the weekend.
The FBI agent witnesses a little girl manipulated by Maxwell
An FBI agent’s grand jury testimony, describing interviews conducted with Epstein’s victims, foreshadowed trial testimony a year later from four women who described Maxwell’s role in sexually abusing them from 1994 to 2004.
The agent said of a woman who described meeting Maxwell and Epstein as a 14-year-old attending a Michigan summer art camp in 1994. The flight logs showed that Epstein and Maxwell went to the school sponsoring the camp because Epstein was a donor.
According to the agent, whose name was redacted from the transcript, the girl had a chance encounter with Epstein and Maxwell one day. After learning the girl was from Palm Beach, Florida, Epstein mentioned he sometimes gave scholarships to students and they asked for her phone number, the agent said.
Once home, the girl visited Epstein’s estate with her mother for tea and the mother was impressed when Epstein said he provided scholarships, enough so that the mother said Epstein was like a “mentor,” the agent said.
The agent said the girl began visiting the property regularly as Epstein and Maxwell “encouraged” her with gifts and trips to the movies, and Epstein began paying for voice lessons and giving her money he said she should have given to her struggling mother.
The agent said the girl thought her relationship with Epstein and Maxwell was weird, “but Maxwell normalized it for her. She was like a big, big sister and made comments like, ‘This is what grown-ups do.’
Eventually, the agent testified, the girl saw Maxwell topless in the pool. After she revealed that she hoped to be an actor and model, Epstein told her that he was best friends with the owner of Victoria’s Secret and that she would have to learn to be comfortable in her underwear and not be a prude, the agent said.
Then, the agent said, the girl asked Epstein what he meant by this and the financier pulled her into his lap and masturbated. After that, the agent added, the girl’s encounters with Epstein began to include sexual contact, particularly in his massage room.
Maxwell was sometimes there with other girls, the agent said. One of the girls would start massaging Epstein and Maxwell would tease the girls, the agent said.
“She would grab the girl’s chest, and she would direct the girls on what to do,” the agent said, relaying the girl’s account. Maxwell’s attitude during the meetings was “very casual; she acted like this was normal,” the agent said.
The testimony released appeared to mirror testimony at Maxwell’s 2021 trial by a woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane.”
During the trial, Jane said Maxwell also participated in group sessions between multiple women and Epstein that usually began with Epstein or Maxwell leading them all to a bedroom or massage room at the Palm Beach residence.