Ghislaine Maxwell being kept awake at night so she doesn’t die like Jeffrey Epstein as she's denied bail 4th time
Ghislaine Maxwell was once again denied release from federal custody as the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stood by prior decisions by US District Judge Alison Nathan to deny her bail for the fourth time.
This came after a hearing on Monday, April 26 focused on Maxwell's complaint that she was being unjustly subjected to forced wellness checks throughout the night that prevented her from sleeping. In its ruling, the appeals court said that the British socialite should address her concerns to Nathan, the Miami Herald reported.
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Appeals judges seemed sympathetic to claims that Maxwell was kept awake at night by guards to ensure she doesn't die in jail in New York, especially after her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein died under suspicious circumstances while awaiting his sex trafficking trial in 2019. According to the Guardian, two of three judges on a US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit panel in Manhattan expressed concerns about Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) guards flashing lights in her cell every 15 minutes at night to ensure she's breathing.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to charges that she procured teenage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse and sometimes participated in the abuse. She has been denied bail three times since her arrest last July. “Is she a suicide risk or not?” circuit judge Richard Sullivan asked assistant US attorney Lara Pomerantz. “Has the BoP concluded she’s a suicide risk or is it some other reason why they’re shining lights all night long?” he added.
Pomerantz explained that it was a routine procedure employed to ensure inmates were breathing. According to her, guards shine light at the ceiling above Maxwell rather than at her eyes while checking on her. This was challenged by circuit judge Pierre Leval, who repeatedly inquired if Maxwell posed a suicide risk. “Routine to shine a light into the eyes of every prisoner every 15 minutes during the night? Are you really telling us that?” he asked.
“Your honor, I can’t tell you what is done as to all inmates, but what I can say is that we have not been told that she is a suicide risk,” Pomerantz replied.
Meanwhile, Attorney David Markus, who represented Maxwell on appeal, stated that she was not suicidal. “There’s no evidence she’s suicidal. Why is the Bureau of Prisons doing this? They’re doing it because Jeffrey Epstein died on their watch. And again, she’s not Jeffrey Epstein, this isn’t right,” Markus said. In August 2019, late pedophile financier Epstein is said to have killed himself in a Manhattan lockup as he awaited trial.
“One of the main complaints in the defendant’s briefing is that she is being improperly treated as a suicide risk in a manner that makes her life hell and doesn’t allow her to sleep and makes it very difficult for her to prepare” for trial, Leval said. Maxwell is deteriorating in jail, her lawyers have alleged, also noting that she is repeatedly searched and filmed outside her cell. On the other hand, prosecutors argued that she remains healthy and has been granted accommodations that other prisoners are denied.
Judges, however, appeared concerned that Maxwell was not permitted to wear an eye mask that wraps securely around her head. Markus said his client puts a sock or towel over her eyes so she can sleep in her cell at the Metropolitan detention center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York.
“The government used the word routine to say how Ms Maxwell’s being treated in MDC. There is absolutely nothing routine about it. She’s being treated differently than any other inmate ever in that institution,” he told the judges. Maxwell was not in court on Monday, according to The Guardian.