Ghislaine Maxwell has won a legal fight to keep secret ‘highly intrusive’ documents about her sex life – just hours before they were due to be released.
The British socialite, 58, argued it could destroy her chances of a fair trial against charges she facilitated the late financier Jeffrey Epstein‘s sexual abuse of girls.
Maxwell’s deposition had been taken in April 2016 for a now-settled civil defamation lawsuit against her by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who had accused Epstein of having kept her as a ‘sex slave’ with Maxwell’s assistance.
Maxwell made last ditch scrambles on Thursday urging the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to keep the deposition about her sex life sealed.
Her lawyer argued that the potentially embarrassing details could make it ‘difficult if not impossible’ to find an impartial jury, out of the public eye.
The appeals court delayed the release of the dossiers until at least September 22 when Maxwell’s appeal will be heard on an expedited basis.
Ghislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing where she was denied bail for her role aiding Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and eventually abuse of minor girls, in Manhattan Federal Court, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. July 14, 2020 in this courtroom sketch.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997, and committing perjury by denying her involvement under oath.
She was arrested on July 2 and has been held in a Brooklyn jail after a judge denied bail, calling her a flight risk. Maxwell’s trial is scheduled for next July.
The release of Maxwell’s deposition had been scheduled for today, pending the outcome of the appeal.
Dozens of other documents from that case were however released late on Thursday, after the presiding judge concluded that the public had a right to see them.
They included claims from Roberts that Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s notorious island.
She also speaks about Prince Andrew’s involvement in Epstein’s activities.
Asked by her own lawyers in 2011 whether Andrew would have ‘relevant information’ in the case, she answered: ‘Yes, he would know a lot of the truth.
‘I don’t know how much he’d be able to help you with, but seeing as he’s in a lot of trouble himself these days I think he might, so I think he might be valuable.’
The Duke of York, once a close friend of both Epstein and Maxwell, has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
Elsewhere in Robert’s testimony, she claims that Maxwell undressed her and told her to lick Jeffrey Epstein’s nipples during their first meeting when she was just 15.
Roberts detailed the ordeal in testimony she gave to lawyers in 2011, which formed part of a 2015 libel case against Maxwell that has been kept secret until now.
Roberts said Maxwell also stripped naked, instructed her to perform oral sex on Epstein while he fondled her, and then told her to ‘straddle him sexually’.
In separate testimony, Roberts also recounted ‘continuous’ orgies that Maxwell was involved in on Epstein’s private Caribbean island with underage girls.
Roberts said girls were routinely flown in via private jet to participate in sex sessions which happened all over the island.
Asked to describe women she personally saw Maxwell have sexual contact with, she responded: ‘There’s so many, I don’t know where you want me to start.’
‘There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21,’ she added.
Prince Andrew alongside Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2001
Little St James Island, in the Caribbean (pictured), was owned by Epstein and was where Roberts alleges the orgies took place
Maxwell participated in sex sessions with them by a pool, near the beachfront, in small huts and in Epstein’s cabana, she alleged.
‘One occasion stands out,’ she said. ‘Models were — I think they were models — were flown in. There were orgies held outside by the pool.’
The women – ‘beautiful, tall, some were blonde, some were sandy brown’ – did not speak English, and conversed in a European language that Roberts guessed was Russian or Czech.
Describing the sex session, she added: ‘Ghislaine, myself, Jeffrey, another girl in this blue, outdoor — I don’t know what you want to call it. Cabana, that … just a bed could fit in.’
Roberts also alleges during the deposition that she was trafficked to Europe to have sex with powerful men, including Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz.
She said Maxwell and Epstein constantly reminded her of how powerful their friends were, so that she wouldn’t betray them.
‘Jeffrey did a lot more of that than she did. But she definitely made it aware that we shouldn’t cross boundaries with them,’ she said.
Describing her first meeting with Epstein, she said: ‘For the first hour, it was actually a real massage, maybe not an hour, maybe like 40 minutes or something.
‘That’s when he turned over on the other side to expose himself fully.
‘So then Ghislaine told me that she wanted me to undress and began to take off my shirt and skirt, my white uniform from Mar-A-Lago, she also took off her shirt and got undressed, and so I was there with just my undies on, and she was completely bare…
Ghislaine Maxwell had ‘continuous’ orgies on Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island with girls as young as 15, accuser Virginia Roberts claims in newly-unsealed court documents
‘During all of this I’m like: “What’s going on, how do I act, what do I say.” I was so afraid of, not afraid or fearful for my life, but unsure of how all this started and wanting to obtain a profession, I was so afraid thinking about upsetting and disappointing them…
‘I was expected to lick [Epstein’s] nipples, instructed on how to do so by [Epstein] and give him oral sex while he wanted to fondle me, and then at the end, I was told by Ghislaine to get on top and straddle Jeffrey sexually…
‘When we were done, we went and had a shower in the room and Jeffrey told me to wash him up and down…’
Also included in the tranche of unsealed documents are flight logs from Epstein’s private jets, police logs Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home, and email exchanges between Maxwell and Epstein himself.
In one such correspondence from January 2015, Epstein writes: ‘You have done nothing wrong and i woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it.
‘Go outside, head high, not as an esacping [sic] convict. go to parties. deal with it’, he added.
Epstein was found hanged at age 66 last August in a Manhattan jail, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges for abusing women and girls in Manhattan and Florida from 2002 to 2005. He had also pleaded not guilty.
In seeking to keep Maxwell’s deposition sealed, her lawyers said in court papers on Thursday she had been promised confidentiality by Giuffre’s lawyers and the presiding judge at the time, through an agreed-upon protective order, before answering many personal, sensitive and ‘allegedly incriminatory’ questions about her dealings with Epstein.
They said further that Maxwell was blindsided when prosecutors quoted from the deposition in her indictment, and accusing Giuffre of leaking the deposition to the government.
In a court filing on Friday, Giuffre’s lawyers called Maxwell’s appeal ‘frivolous, and a transparent attempt to further delay the release of documents to which the public has a clear and unequivocal right to access.’
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, centre, with attorneys David Boies, left, and Brad Edwards during a news conference outside Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse following a hearing in the Jeffrey Epstein case on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 in New York
Court papers pertaining to a 2015 deposition civil defamation case against Maxwell included a January 2015 email Epstein sent to Maxwell insisting she had ‘done nothing wrong’
The lawyers also called the allegation Giuffre leaked the deposition ‘completely and utterly false.’
Friday’s order also covers a second deposition by an unnamed Epstein accuser that Maxwell also wanted kept under seal. Other documents from Giuffre’s lawsuit that quote or disclose information from the depositions also remain sealed.
Lawyers for Maxwell said on July 10 in a court filing requesting bail in her criminal case that she had not been in contact with Epstein for ‘more than a decade.’
Maxwell is now battling prosecutors in her criminal case over the scope of a protective order intended to protect her right to a fair trial while ensuring the privacy of her accusers.
Source: Daily Mail AU
