Lock Maxwell up for 30 years, say prosecutors as sentencing nears
Ghislaine Maxwell should serve at least 30 years in prison — until she’s 90 — for causing “irreparable harm to vulnerable children” in a decadelong child exploitation scheme with Jeffrey Epstein, Manhattan federal prosecutors write in new court filings.
Maxwell will be sentenced on June 28. The feds also recommended Maxwell serve up to 55 years in prison. Prosecutors slammed the once high-flying socialite’s plea to the court last week for leniency as self-serving and “out of touch with reality.”
“Maxwell was an adult who made her own choices,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey. “She made the choice to sexually exploit numerous underage girls. She made the choice to conspire with Epstein for years, working as partners in crime and causing devastating harm to vulnerable victims. She should be held accountable for her disturbing role in an extensive child exploitation scheme.”
The feds say Maxwell’s allegation that a fellow inmate at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Complex had planned to strangle her in her sleep for a financial reward is exaggerated and that there was never an earnest attempt on her life.
The claim stemmed from an unnamed prisoner quipping, “I’d kill her if someone paid me a million dollars,” according to prosecutors, who cited an internal MDC investigation.
“Someone else overheard that remark and reported it, resulting in the inmate being moved out of the housing unit,” the feds wrote. “(The) inmate had not actually been paid to kill the defendant and had not actually threatened Maxwell.”
Maxwell, who has British, U.S., and French citizenship, also alleged that the psychological abuse she suffered as a child by her “overbearing” father, the late British publishing baron Robert Maxwell, paved the way for her mental manipulation by Epstein. The financier hanged himself in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking of underage girls.
Letters from a psychologist and her siblings described physical abuse and excruciating family meals dominated by the patriarch.
“[While] the defendant may have had a marginally less positive experience than
other exceptionally wealthy children, it is difficult to see how stern conversation at the family dinner table is an excuse for participating in a child exploitation scheme,” wrote Comey.
Maxwell has accepted no responsibility “for the harm she has caused her victims.
Instead, her entire submission is an effort to cast herself as a victim: of her father, of Epstein, of the media, of prosecutors, of the Bureau of Prisons,” the prosecutor wrote.
The government also asked the court to impose the maximum fine allowable by law of $750,000, which they described as “a mere drop in the bucket for a multimillionaire like” Maxwell. The memo accuses her of repeated efforts to hide that she’s a “remarkably wealthy woman.”
“The defendant’s access to wealth enabled her to present herself as a supposedly respectable member of society, who rubbed shoulders with royalty, presidents, and celebrities,” wrote Comey. “It is only right that she should suffer some small financial penalty for the incalculable harm she has caused.”
Maxwell has asked the court to sentence her to a maximum of four to five years. The probation department recommended she serve 20 and said anything more would be tantamount to “a life sentence” for the 60-year-old.
Maxwell’s lawyer Bobbi Sternheim did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.