Jeffrey Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, attends her sentencing hearing at a courtroom sketch in New York City, USA, on June 28, 2022. Maxwell was convicted on December 29, 2021. for five of the six charges he faced for aiding the late financial and convicted sex offender Jeffrey. Epstein sexually abuses underage girls. REUTERS / Jane Rosenberg
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NEW YORK, June 28 (Reuters) – Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced on Tuesday to 20 years in prison for helping sex offender and financial globetrotter Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
The British socialite, 60, was convicted in December of recruiting and preparing four girls for sexual encounters with Epstein, then her boyfriend, between 1994 and 2004.
The one-month trial was widely regarded as the trial Epstein never had, who committed suicide in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting his own trial for sex trafficking. It was one of the most prominent cases following the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to talk about sexual abuse, often at the hands of rich and powerful people. Read more
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In an often emotional and explicit testimony during the trial, four women stated that Maxwell was a central figure in his abuse by Epstein.
U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan read the sentence in a hearing in Manhattan federal court.
Last week, prosecutors called Maxwell’s conduct “shockingly predatory” and said she deserved to spend at least 30 years behind bars for the five charges she was convicted of, based on her interpretation of federal guidelines. of sentence. Read more
Maxwell’s lawyers had previously said in court documents that she should be sentenced to no more than 5 1/2 years, arguing that she was being a scapegoat for Epstein’s crimes and that she had already spent a significant amount of time in prison. Read more
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 and was repeatedly released on bail. Since then, she has been detained primarily at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), where she has complained of insects and the smell of raw wastewater in her cell. His lawyer has compared his confinement conditions to those of Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs.” Read more
Maxwell was put on suicide watch over the weekend. However, her lawyers said she was not suicidal. Read more
In April, Nathan turned down Maxwell’s acquittal offer, but overturned the guilty verdicts on two charges because they overlapped. This reduced Maxwell’s maximum possible sentence from 65 to 55 years.
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Report by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Mark Porter and Noeleen Walder
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