Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell guilty on five of six counts

NEW YORK • Ghislaine Maxwell, former companion to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been convicted of conspiring with him for at least a decade to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls.

A federal jury in Manhattan on Wednesday found Maxwell, 60, daughter of a British media mogul, guilty of sex trafficking and four of the five other charges against her.

She was acquitted of one count of enticing a minor to travel across state lines to engage in an illegal sexual act.

Maxwell's trial was widely seen as the courtroom reckoning that Epstein never had.

Epstein, who was arrested in July 2019 at the age of 66, killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell the following month, the medical examiner ruled, while awaiting his own trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was arrested a year later.

The verdict came late in the afternoon of the jury's fifth full day of deliberations.

The jurors filed into the courtroom at 5.04pm, and Judge Alison Nathan read the verdict aloud: guilty on five of the six counts.

After the jurors filed out of the courtroom, Maxwell stood, cast a brief glance in the direction of her siblings - two sisters and a brother who were seated in the first row of the spectator gallery - and was escorted quickly out of the courtroom, without speaking to her lawyers.

Maxwell's conviction closed another chapter in the saga of Epstein, whose lurid exploits, dealings with the criminal justice system and cast of famous friends made him - and, by extension, Maxwell - the subject of intense public scrutiny for years.

In Maxwell's trial, the government called four accusers - two used pseudonyms and one only a partial name - who testified that they had been served up to Epstein to be sexually abused.

Maxwell was present for some of the abuse, according to the testimony, and played a role in enticing and grooming some of the victims.

Mr Damian Williams, US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on Wednesday night: "The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done. I want to commend the bravery of the girls - now grown women - who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom."

One of Maxwell's lawyers, Ms Bobbi Sternheim, said outside the courthouse: "We firmly believe in Ghislaine's innocence.

"Obviously, we are very disappointed with the verdict. We have already started working on the appeal, and we are confident that she will be vindicated."

Judge Nathan did not set a date for Maxwell to be sentenced.

On the most serious of the counts for which she was convicted - sex trafficking of minors - she could face up to 40 years in prison. Another count carries a potential 10-year sentence and the three others, all conspiracy counts, carry sentences of up to five years each.

Maxwell also faces a separate trial, in the same court, on two counts of perjury, stemming from 2016 depositions she gave in a lawsuit related to Epstein.

Maxwell's trial, once expected to last up to six weeks, moved quickly as the government pared its witness list and presented a case over 10 days that centred on the four accusers. Two of the women testified that Epstein started engaging in sex acts with them when they were only 14 years old. One said Maxwell was sometimes present in the encounters, and the other said Maxwell had molested her directly by touching her breasts.

Two accusers depicted Maxwell, a former socialite, as a kind of mentor and big sister - a picture of elegance and sophistication, one recalled - who took them shopping and to the movies in what prosecutors said was a ploy to build trust.

Then she played a key role in normalising sexualised massages with Epstein that, in some cases, led to years of sexual abuse.

"Maxwell was a sophisticated predator who knew exactly what she was doing," a prosecutor, Ms Alison Moe, told the jury in closing arguments last week.

"She manipulated her victims, and she groomed them for sexual abuse," Ms Moe added.

Ties to Epstein led to career downfalls for former Barclays chief executive officer Jes Staley and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black and have besmirched the reputations of Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, Leslie Wexner, Bill Clinton and many other prominent men.

All have denied knowing about or participating in inappropriate conduct with Epstein.

NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG