Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty on five out of six charges, including trafficking

I’ll admit it, I was worried about Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, especially after I read some of Vanity Fair’s coverage of the federal case against Maxwell. As it turns out, the feds understood the assignment – the trial was not about the larger scope of crimes Maxwell committed with Jeffrey Epstein. The prosecution kept a limited scope for crimes they could prove in court, and that strategy was the right one. After five days of deliberations, the jury convicted Ghislaine Maxwell on five out of six charges brought against her.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former companion to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted on Wednesday of conspiring with him for at least a decade to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls.

A federal jury in Manhattan found Ms. Maxwell, 60, the 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.

Ms. Maxwell’s trial was widely seen as the courtroom reckoning that Mr. Epstein never had. Mr. 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. Ms. Maxwell was arrested a year later.

Judge Nathan did not set a date for Ms. 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.

Ms. 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 Mr. Epstein.

[From The NY Times]

According to the Times, Maxwell barely reacted to the verdict, all she did was sit still as the verdict was read, then she touched her face and drank some water, then briefly spoke to one of her lawyers. As for sentencing… my guess is that the judge didn’t immediately set a sentencing date because federal prosecutors know that there are still deals to be made potentially. There are still so many questions about Maxwell’s activities and finances, as well as Jeffrey Epstein’s activities and finances. Not to mention all of the other powerful men who were “given” trafficked girls and women by Epstein and Maxwell. Ghislaine still has cards to play if she does want to make a deal on sentencing. Speaking of, I can only imagine Prince Andrew’s sweat glands were working overtime yesterday.

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