by Paul Serran
Ghislaine Maxwell is larger-than-life. Everything about her is colossal. Her childhood as the youngest and preferred daughter of newspaper titan and alleged Mossad spy Robert Maxwell put her in direct contact with British, European and American super elites.
When her father was found dead at high seas having ‘fallen’ from his yacht ‘Lady Ghislaine’, his empire came crashing down, exposing how Maxwell had stolen from his employees’ pension funds. Shame, legal and financial problems haunted the family. In the historical 1992 article that Edward Klein wrote for Vanity Fair, ‘The Sinking of Captain Bob‘ a young Ghislaine takes the rein of the PR effort for the family in the end of the long piece, with words that proved to be prophetic, though not perhaps in the way she expected.
“I did not recognize in Ghislaine Maxwell the young woman her friends had described to me—the racy, glamorous social flibbertigibbet whom George Hamilton had escorted to the Ever Ready Derby in England and skied with in Aspen, who had attended the Kerry Kennedy-Andrew Cuomo wedding, and who had once instructed her father’s pilot to put his helicopter into a free-fall to scare her fellow passenger.
‘He [Robert Maxwell] wasn’t a crook,’ she told me. ‘A thief to me is somebody who steals money. Do I think that my father did that? No. I don’t know what he did. Obviously, something happened. Did he put it in his own pocket? Did he run off with the money? No. And that’s my definition of a crook.’
‘I’m surviving—just,’ she went on. ‘But I can’t just die quietly in a corner. I have to believe that something good will come out of this mess. It’s sad for my mother. It’s sad to have lost my dad. It’s sad for my brothers. But I would say we’ll be back. Watch this space.'”
“I would say we’ll be back. Watch this space.” She just knew she was destined to do big things, and indeed she was. To be a jet-setter, a helicopter pilot, a submarine pilot. To mingle with the rich and famous. To be also an alleged vital part of the biggest and most infamous pedophile and sex trafficking ring ever to be exposed to the public.
***
I’ve written a lot about the Jeffrey Epstein case, beginning when he hadn’t even been arrested yet – something that not many people dared to do. The same goes for Ghislaine Maxwell. Well before July 2, 2020, when police arrested her on multiple criminal charges, I was researching her and her family and associates. Gearing up for this inevitable day of reckoning, really.
In July and August 2020, I published 4 articles here in the Frank Report that provided a ton of content and context to this very complex story.
Ghislaine Maxwell Vs. Virginia Giuffre: The Making of a Sex Slave and Her Escape
Ghislaine Maxwell – Silver Spoons and Hard Times
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Alleged Secret Husband Scott Borgerson: Guilty By Association?
Between her arrest and the beginning of the trial this Monday, 515 days have elapsed. That’s 1 year, 4 months and 27 days. And that’s in the brutal MDC in Brooklyn!
Bail for Maxwell has been denied 5 times, on the obvious grounds that she has multiple nationalities – British, French and American – and enjoys the means and the incentive to escape punishment.
So, up until a few days ago you couldn’t talk to me about Maxwell’s trial being fixed in any way in her favour.
But then,
1) the presiding judge, Allison Nathan, was nominated by Joe Biden for a golden promotion to the Second Circuit, on the eve of the start of the trial.
2) Then, we learned that the daughter of James Comey was going to be one of the prosecutors – and she did not leave a good image while working in the aborted Epstein case, and was allegedly involved in the debacle of the disappearing of the CCTV images from Epstein’s cell.
3) Then, during voir dire, summed up Miami Herald’s Julie K Brown, “one juror apparently forgot to show up, two others couldn’t be found for a time and a third cited financial hardships for not serving. A fourth said her husband surprised her with a vacation.” We all suspect jury tampering when we see these kinds of things unfolding.
4) Finally, the prosecution only used 25 minutes in their opening statements, unlike the vast majority of cases when an hour is well spent on that – as did the defense, in this case.
So, in my mind, all bets were off. The possibility of a fix of some kind could not be discarded. When the ball started rolling with the testimonies, these fears of mine have been allayed to a great extent.
According to the superseding indictment filed in late March 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell faces the following charges:
- Count One: Conspiracy to Entice Minors to Travel to Engage in Illegal Sex Acts.
- Count Two: Enticement of a Minor to Travel to Engage in Illegal Sex Acts.
- Count Three: Conspiracy to Transport Minors with Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity.
- Count Four: Transportation of a Minor with Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity.
- Count Five: Sex Trafficking Conspiracy.
- Count Six: Sex Trafficking of a Minor.
- Counts Seven and Eight: Perjury (stemming from allegedly false deposition testimony during a civil suit).
Maxwell, state the prosecutors, “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.”
So, the trial finally started in the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse, in New York City. The players to watch in this judicial match are briefly described below.
United States District Judge Alison Nathan was appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama in 2011. She clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, worked as counsel for the attorney general of New York and was an associate White House counsel and special assistant for Obama.
Her pretrial rulings include permitting prosecutors to use the word “victim” when discussing Maxwell’s accusers and allowing those accusers to testify anonymously, using pseudonyms.
She also granted Maxwell’s request to keep secret undisclosed “sensational” information contained in the court documents and transcripts. Last week she was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, one step away from the Supreme Court.
The prosecution team:
AUSA Alison G. Moe is a member of the Southern District of New York’s Public Corruption Unit.
AUSA Maurene R. Comey has been with SDNY since 2014, and is a chief of the Violent and Organized Crime Unit. The daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, who once served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Incidentally, both Moe and Comey had been involved in the aborted Jeffrey Epstein prosecution.
AUSA Andrew Rohrbach has been with SDNY since 2019. He previously served as an attorney for the Department of Justice.
AUSA Lara E. Pomerantz is a member of SDNY’s Public Corruption Unit.
The defense team:
Defense attorney Bobbi Sternheim’s is no stranger to defending the accused accomplices of notorious men. She represented a Saudi man accused of being one of Osama bin Laden’s top deputies – the man was convicted. She has also defended alleged members of organized crime, drug dealers and public officials accused of corruption.
Laura Menninger has been an attorney in Colorado for the past 20 years. Menninger also represented Maxwell in a defamation lawsuit Virginia Roberts Giuffre brought against her in 2015, which Maxwell paid to settle in 2017.
Jeffrey Pagliuca is an attorney at the same Denver law firm as Menninger and also worked as a public defender in Colorado before joining the firm.
Christian Everdell worked as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York for nearly a decade, spending time as part of the district’s terrorism and international narcotics unit and its complex frauds and cybercrime unit.
The prosecution’s short opening statements were delivered by the younger and prettier AUSA Lara Pomerantz. It’s a deliberate maneuver to present their case with someone that roughly matches the demographics of the victims. (This worked out well in the Keith Raniere trial).
Pomerantz said Maxwell ‘helped normalize abusive sexual conduct’ at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein; she was his ‘best friend and right hand’, involved in every detail of his life and serving as the ‘lady of the house‘ for his various properties.
The prosecution also alleges that Epstein and Maxwell had a ‘playbook’ for grooming young girls for him, learning about their ‘hopes and dreams’ and gathering intimate details about their families in order to make them feel comfortable around him before abusing them.
‘She preyed on vulnerable young girls, manipulated them, and served them up to be sexually abused,’ Pomerantz said in the prosecution’s opening statement.
To demonstrate this, prosecutors will call four victims/accusers: the anonymous Jane, Kate, and Carolyn, as well as Annie Farmer.
Attorney Bobbi Sternheim’s gave the opening statements for the Maxwell defense, stating that the case was about “memory, manipulation and money,” arguing that the alleged victims of Epstein have received multimillion-dollar payments from a Victims’ fund set up by Epstein’s estate, and that they changed their stories throughout the years.
Maxwell ‘is not Jeffrey Epstein’ and is not like any of the other powerful men who have abused women. ‘She’s being blamed for what a man did – just like Eve in the Garden of Eden’, said Sternheim, reaching for the scriptures in hope to salvage her clients’ freedom, if not her immortal soul.
Sternheim noted that ‘Jane’ is a now a successful actress on a soap opera. ‘She is a consummate actress. She is a pro at playing roles. And as her scripts and characters change, so has her story that you will hear in this courtroom,’
Annie Farmer is the only accuser to have her identity revealed. Sternheim told the jury that Annie will claim she’s scarred by what happened in New Mexico.
‘Yet ask yourself, if it was so traumatic, why has she kept for 25 years the boots she claims Epstein purchased for her to wear in the snake-filled brush of Santa Fe, boots that have been well-worn over more than two decades.’
Maxwell is also accused of befriending the third alleged underage victim known as ‘Kate’ in London, and grooming her between 1994 and 1995.
Sternheim took aim at Kate’s admitted drug use during the period of time that she will testify about and that it ‘fogged her memory.’
The final accuser, Carolyn, lived in Florida and was about 14 when she was recruited to give Epstein ‘sexual’ massages for money at his Palm Beach mansion, prosecutors claim.
Maxwell’s attorney took aim at ‘Carolyn’s’ troubled past and claims she ‘lived a dangerous lifestyle’ and was using drugs during the period that she interacted with Epstein.
(It’s usual for sex predators to target minors with broken families and deviant lifestyles, which makes them a much easier prey. So the tactic of exploiting that seems specially brutal.)
In the next installment of this story we will begin talking about the depositions. The trial is expected to last 6 weeks, so buckle up!
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At least her siblings have come to stand by her, unlike Clare Bronfman.
Not that it’s likely to make much difference to the court. The evidence speaks for itself.
Also, is it really so unusual for a criminal to go down for a co-offender’s crimes? It’s called joint enterprise in the UK.
Vanity Fair
How To With John Wilson’s Shocking NXIVM Connection Was Years in the Making
Show creator John Wilson explains his surprising feud with NXIVM’s Keith Raniere and Allison Mack, and why he felt personally “vindicated” by the cult’s destruction.
By Yohana Desta
December 3, 2021
Here’s a story documentarian John Wilson thought he would never tell: When he was in college, he was in an a cappella group that feuded with another a cappella group. After the two groups had an explosive confrontation that bled into an online war of words, Wilson was told he’d be expelled unless he issued a formal apology to the head of the other group. The twist? The rival a cappella group was run by Keith Raniere, the disgraced founder of the sex cult NXIVM.
He finally told the shocking story on Friday night’s episode of How To With John Wilson, his idiosyncratic HBO docuseries. “I feel like I’m just sitting on this bomb,” Wilson told Vanity Fair ahead of the episode’s release. “I’m excited to see how people receive it.”
The theme of the episode is “How to Appreciate Wine” and features the show’s creator (and main character) trying to fit in with a group of seasoned wine lovers. He then dovetails into a story of another time he tried to fit in—back when he was in college at Binghamton University.
The singing group he joined, known as the Binghamton Crosbys, was invited to a summit called A Cappella Innovations in upstate New York, hosted by Raniere and his group, Simply Human. Allison Mack, an actress and key member of NXIVM—which was then not yet publicly known as a cult, but rather as a multilevel marketing company that offered personal-development seminars—was the emcee of the event.
Wilson’s revelation is remarkably bizarre and disturbing, a previously untold story in the broader NXIVM narrative. In the episode, Wilson claims Raniere “lurked around the venue all evening, giving lofty speeches about the transformative power of a cappella,” and later allegedly asked the students for their Social Security numbers. (The summit, Wilson claims, was a front to draw impressionable undergrads into NXIVM.)
At the summit, Wilson and other members in his group researched Raniere. They learned that he was on a number of cult watch lists, and that people who had joined NXIVM had died by suicide. At the closing party, they confronted NXIVM. “We screamed at Allison Mack and Keith Raniere in front of the rest of the a cappella groups and scrawled the names of the suicide victims on the white boards they had set up on the walls,” Wilson recalls in the episode. Mack allegedly retaliated by accusing the students of defacing the hotel room with urine and feces. The feud reached the office of the dean of Binghamton, who allegedly threatened to expel Wilson if he didn’t call Mack and personally apologize to her. Wilson eventually did as the dean asked.
Years later, NXIVM was finally brought down after the cult’s nefarious activity was made public. In 2020, Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison for charges including sex trafficking, racketeering, and wire fraud conspiracy. Mack, who played a key role in grooming and manipulating women into becoming sex slaves for Raniere, was sentenced to three years in prison.
“I was texting with my a cappella friends when that started,” Wilson told V.F. of the Raniere trial. “We were like, ‘Oh, my God!’ We just felt so vindicated.”
Wilson originally thought about sharing the story in the show’s first season, which aired in 2020, but decided against it because he “didn’t think that enough people really knew or cared who [Raniere] was, or what that organization was.” That changed when The Vow, HBO’s true-crime docuseries about Raniere and the making of NXIVM was released in the summer of 2020, pushing it into the zeitgeist. “People began to think this story is as psychotic as I do,” Wilson said.
Rehashing that period of his life was difficult, Wilson says. Through the show, he’s gotten more comfortable sharing extremely personal details about his life, even if he finds certain elements—like being in an a cappella group—mortifying. “It was something I wasn’t really fully prepared to broadcast yet,” he admits. He also had to relive the feud itself, recalling some of the more unpleasant moments from that period.
“I did have to have a frank conversation with the dean of my college at the time and try to explain to her who these people were and why they were so malicious,” Wilson recalls. “She just didn’t believe me. I’ve had this weird shame ever since. All the alumni of the a cappella group were just like, ‘Why did you get yourself involved in something like this?’” He pauses, laughing. “It’s just this insane drama that I never thought I would ever resurrect.”
Attorney Robert Barnes has an interesting speculation: The point is to keep Maxwell contained, and not spill what she knows about people in high places. To this end, the government may allow her to have the hope of an acquittal to keep her quiet. Then, when she runs out of appeals and is convicted, they will “Whitey Bulger” her. That is, put her in a prison where the inmates will hate her so much that one of them will take her life.
If that were what was going on, and there were ruthless people involved capable of pulling off something so complex, why didn’t they just arrange for her to suffer a convenient fatal accident or medical incident before her case had even garnered too much attention, much less gone to a very public trial? There was even a fairly extended period when she had sort of gone missing and, if she’d been found dead of an apparent suicide, it would have seemed very plausible.
Sorry, but it seems to me that such theorizing has a fundamental internal contradiction in that it posits conspirators who would have to be both deviously strategic and haplessly lethargic if you really think through all the assumptions and implications.
Surely, ‘deviously strategic’ could well describe placing Ghislaine in a facility where vengeful prisoners could reach her and end her life, and ‘haplessly lethargic’ could describe lapses in checks and a tedious response to any calls she might make for help.
Neither way of endangering the life of a threat to the powerful seems far-fetched to me.
Everybody confident that Epstein didn’t kill himself but was murdered to silence him has to explain why Maxwell is still alive.
Most of them were confident that she’d been Jimmy Hoffa’d back before her arrest when she went missing. Or, as the conspiracy enthusiasts put it, “went missing”
Oh, but see now there’s a subtle plan afoot to have her trial conclude and then rub her out.
Conspiracy fables are so much more interesting than the simple truth.
The public trial is to appease the public that something is being done to punish high-level pedophiles. The point is to punish her but in a way that doesn’t implicate other powerful people, some perhaps as yet unknown. Having her also conveniently die before a trial takes place, would only add fuel to the already very widespread perception that Epstein’s suicide wasn’t real, and was a cover-up.
I have a hard time believing that the Biden administration has much interest in protecting Donald Trump’s reputation regarding Maxwell, Epstein, and underage Lolitas.
All these “government coverup” conspiracies seem to involve every branch of government working in perfect harmony, across administrations, Republican and Democrat. It’s absurd.
Completely agree.
Conspiracy theories is what Frank does best, he wants you to look away from the truth.
The ol “dead cat” maneuver.
I have very little interest in this sordid case. Epstein had a million friends because he was as rich as Croesus and threw his money around. He also threw parties that’d make a Roman Bacchanalia look cheap. This drew the rich and / or famous like flies to a shitpile. It also drew plenty of aspiring young models and “models” into his orbit.
Rich older men. Ambitious young beauties. It’s an old story, older than the Roman Empire at its most decadent.
Is what Epstein and Maxwell got up to immoral? Sure is. Illegal? You betcha. Am I outraged or even particularly surprised? Nope.
Rich old men wanting young tail. Sweet young things wanting to marry money. Pardon me while I yawn. Are people really so naive as to be genuinely shocked by this? Or is it mostly pretense?
I do like your posts Aristotle. Most are spot on. But here you are wrong, at least partly. Sure, there were ambitious young beauties attracted by the opportunity. But some of them were factually raped by Epstein. Even worse: Epstein abused really young kids, some as young as 14 over multiple years. Not a singular girl (bad enough) but dozens of them. It was child sex abuse on an industrial scale. Quite a different story. You are not shocked and you yawn about this story? Then you don’t know much about it…..
Then, when she runs out of appeals and is convicted, they will “Whitey Bulger” her. Diane Lipson
Or Jeffrey Epstein her.
The Visit
So, if she had everything–money, status, and so one do we have any idea as to motive? What was in it for her?
Excellent writing, as always.
Thank you so much! She grew up in the midst of multimillionaire criminals. She is still with the same crowd. As for the pedo lifestyle, I think she began as a victim of her father, and as it often happens in these cases, she grew up to become a predator herself.
Spell check drives me crazy.
Surely, you mean “alleged” predator😁
I still have a difficult time believing its true. But maybe that’s because I’m older and still put women on a pedestal.
And she’s very attractive. Why would a pretty woman with “everything” groom young girls to hang with old, albeit rich, men?
And for the record: what personality disorder do men who went for this have? ” Hey, let’s go to my private island and rape girls.”
This too needs to be examined.
Um, no thanks.
Reportedly, Ghislaine wanted Jeffrey Epstein to marry her. With his wealth and her social connections, they would have been quite the power couple. She would gain back the wealth and prestige she had lost when her father died.
Ghislane Maxwell might have reviewed some books on Amazon after buying them.
A review written shortly after Epstein’s death.
G. Maxwell
5.0 out of 5 stars A comforting read after a personal tragedy
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2019
A good friend of mine died recently under very tragic circumstances. Some of us saw it coming for quite a while but it was still a huge shock when it finally happened. I picked up this book at the advice of a friend and absolutely couldn’t put it down. I’d read it walking the dog, getting fast food, or even just lounging around the house. It helped me realized that my friend really believed in something, and that giving your life for the CIA, NSA, FBI, Mossad, or other intelligence agency is truly a higher calling and not something to mourn. A wholehearted recommendation.
552 people found this helpful
G. Maxwell
Portland, OR United States
https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AEI4E66VGJAOZIUFDV5E2NSL42IQ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_gw_btm?ie=UTF8
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
No one knows if this is really her. Anyone can type in any name.
When her father died, the poor woman was left with nothing but a 100K per year trust fund. Not enough to keep her in the style she had been accustomed to. She was reduced to taking a job selling high-end real estate in New York.
Pretty simple. More money, more status. She no longer had these when she met Jeffery. He was her golden ticket. These people are sick.
After her father’s death, Ghislaine had far less money than before. She was forced to survive on a 100K per year trust fund. Not enough to keep her in the style she was accustomed to. She was even reduced to taking a job selling high-end real estate in Manhattan.
The money she lived on “prior” to her father’s death wasn’t hers anyway. It was leveraged against the pension pots of normal people years ago who lost everything. How ironic is it she is being tried for robbing normal young people of their affairs only to pay to top their pension pots and perhaps lose everything herself? Very prudent to this website in a karma kind of way…
She lost her lifestyle of private jets and yachts when her father died and he was exposed as a fraudster. She moved to New-York with little money (enough to live comfortably but without the private jets and mansions with staff). Epstein provided her with the lifestyle she craved. The only thing she had to do was to recruit attractive young women for him, some of them underage and as young as 14. And she did.
Don’t expect Randy Andy or Bill Clinton to be called to account.
Jizzlane Maxwell is truly a reprehensible person, just like her father and her boyfriend.
But she is also the designated Fall Girl.
And here is a coincidence that will go unmentioned at the trial.
Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden, owned a small island in the Virgin Islands near Jeffrey Epstein’s Pedophile Island.
Lobbyist bought tropical land from Biden’s brother: Scott Green, a lobbyist with close ties to Joe Biden, purchased Virgin Islands property from James Biden and then extended him a private mortgage.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/james-biden-lobbyist-virgin-islands-099318
Just a reminder that Trump and Epstein have been decades-long friends. You know while your playing that QAnon card. So since association is guilt according to you, when will Trump also be arrested?
Conservatives so damn dumb. Bringing up crap like nepotism after 4 years of nothing but nepotism in the White House. Bring up unfair business advantage after that same family made over $2 billion using the White House, and now going all in about alleged Dem pedos after supporting a GOP pedos like that judge for office and Gaetz. All you do is remind everyone of their far more egregious offenses.
Hats off to the blowhards who can blame trump for, and about everything. Epstein visited Clinton 17 times in the white house in a two to three year period records show. Will you say trump made the appointments??
Or the 27 trips Clinton made to little girl island with Epstein. Sure trump flew on Epstein’s plane once according to flight logs, but that was from Florida to NYC. Not to little girl island.
A psychologist able to treat tds could clean house here on Franks site. But liberal windbags are not easy to treat.
Why leave out Trump? He was long closer to her and Epstein, than any of those you mention, and the two men had residences in multiple cities that put them within no more than a 5 minute drive of each other – coincidence?
AnonyMaker,
Really —“why leave out Trump?”
……….You do realize, you’re addressing the world’s most craven conspiracy theorist.
He’s to scared to reply to you.
Shadowstate1958-
Do think you are funny with your Hitler waterless shower jokes? I read what the other commentators quoted from you, and I find you offensive.
What I don’t understand is why she’s not charged with sexual abuse of a minor. Victim no. 1 (Jane, who’s real identity is Nadia Björlin) said she also was abused by Maxwell. In her testimony Jane said no vibrator was used by Maxwell on her and Maxwell never saw her perform oral sex on Epstein. But Maxwell touched her breasts and Maxwell was present while sexually abused by Epstein, according to Jane.
This started when Jane was only 14 and lasted until she was 17. So nearly 3 years of regular abuse. Horrifying. No wonder she got 5 million from the Epstein compensation fund.
Jane also testified that adult women in their twenties where present during the abuse, among those a British woman named Emmy (Taylor) and a Sophie. Emily Taylor was Maxwell’s assistant at the time, in her early 20’s. Sophie could be Sophie Biddle. She’s in the flight records and was a passenger on Epsteins jet in this period and she’s listed in Epsteins black book under “California massage”. So, here we potentially have two women who can corroborate Jane’s story about Maxwells (and their own) involvent. Why are they not a witness for the government? That’s a question I would like to ask the prosecutors.
StevenJ
You make some excellent observations! I haven’t been following the case. Thanks for sharing this info or as they say in NXIVM “data”.
I bet the two adult women you mentioned acted as procurers for Epstein. These two women are probably worried about self- incrimination and the government doesn’t want to offer them immunity for their cooperation.
Really? I am just surprised she isn’t dead yet, just like Epstein.
Let’s do one of my thought exercises and say she is innocent of the charges. She still has to know names as she worked hand-in-hand with Epstein. At those parties, seeing who comes and goes, by now her brain would have started making connections. If I was one of those super-rich pedos, I would just kill her out of an abundance of caution.
The only thing I can think of is she created some insurance policy which means those in those rich pedo circles are highly motivated to make sure she goes free or gets a very light sentence. If it’s a lifetime sentence, suddenly her silence isn’t so assured.