Who is Bobbi Sternheim? Ghislaine Maxwell hires New York 'super lawyer' who defended Osama Bin Laden's henchman
Ghislaine Maxwell has hired a New York-based "super lawyer" who had earlier represented one of Osama Bin Laden's henchmen ahead of her child sex trafficking charge due to take place next year.
The lawyer Bobbi Sternheim has been described on the website of her law firm, Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio as a "recognized leader" in "litigating difficult and complex cases." Sternheim has Top Secret/ SCI Clearance and is known to have tried international organized crime and racketeering conspiracies, international terrorism offenses, international telemarketing fraud, capital murder, and interstate transport of pornographic media. The site further states that Bobbi, who has been named a "New York Super Lawyer," holds a master’s in forensic psychology and an LLM in Advocacy in addition to her law degree.
One of her most famous clients includes a man called Khalid al-Fawwaz who prosecutors say is a "top al-Qaeda terrorist," reports Daily Mail. Sternheim represented Fawwaz in 2015 on charges of conspiracy in the twin embassy bombings which took place in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 that ended up killing 224 people.
Prosecutors also said that al-Fawwaz had "worked for years, directly and personally for Osama bin Laden. ... The defendant helped Osama bin Laden declare his bloody war on Americans," as per the Mail report. Al-Fawwaz was sentenced to life in prison.
Sternheim was also reportedly involved in another very high-profile case that involved a Vietnamese man who had been instructed by a top figure with al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate to carry out a suicide bombing at London's Heathrow Airport.
The man, Minh Quang Pham, 33, was sentenced to 40 years in March 2016. Pham had pleaded guilty to charges that he provided material support to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Pham was a graphic artist who had traveled to Yemen back in 2010. He admitted that he had helped prepare the Islamist militant group's online propaganda magazine, Inspire and also received military-type training.
According to papers filed at New York's Southern District Court which were obtained by The Daily Mirror, Sternheim "hereby appears as counsel for defendant Ghislaine Maxwell."
We had recently reported that a woman reportedly come forward to share her traumatic past that saw her being sexually violated at the hands of Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. The 48-year-old who preferred to be known by a pseudonym Samantha said she believes Maxwell "is the real monster" who allegedly raped her with the disgraced financier.
While speaking to The Sun, Samantha shared, "They stole my whole life. I had a bright future ahead of me and they took that from me. The last time I saw them, Maxwell got a hold of me, restrained my arms behind my back and put a ball gag in my mouth, and then raped me with a sex toy."
"Then she called Epstein in. And he joined in. I was terrified - I couldn't do anything to stop them. It was the most traumatic experience but I feel she was the monster, she was the one behind it all. When they were done, when it was finally over, I walked out of that door a very different person than what I walked in - I was in shock."
Maxwell, the daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell, was a one-time girlfriend of the billionaire financier and is alleged to have later recruited and groomed young girls for sex with Epstein and his powerful friends.