Ghislaine Maxwell had 'no contact' with Jeffrey Epstein for a decade, claim her lawyers and request $5M bail
Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell are seeking her release on a $5 million bail, claiming she did not have contact with Jeffrey Epstein for more than a decade before he died last year and have insisted that she is not a flight risk.
Maxwell, a confidante and former girlfriend of Epstein, a convicted pedophile, has been accused of being complicit in his sex crimes and was arrested by the FBI at her luxurious New Hampshire home on Thursday, July 2. She is currently in custody in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, and concerns have been raised for her well-being over Epstein's fate. The multimillionaire financier had been arrested last July on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York and died in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan a little over a month later.
While it was officially ruled a suicide, many have pointed to the inconsistencies in his death and argued that he had been killed so he would not testify about the powerful people who were complicit in his crimes. With Maxwell now finding herself in an eerily-similar situation, her lawyers have petitioned the Manhattan Federal Court for her release, arguing that she has no criminal record and is the victim of a smear campaign from the media.
In court filings seen by the Daily Mail, her lawyer, Mark Cohen, wrote, "Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client - wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein - even though she'd had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade, had never been charged with a crime or been found liable in any civil litigation, and has always denied any allegations of claimed misconduct.
"Sometimes the simplest point is the most critical one: Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein," he continued. "Ever since Epstein's arrest, Ms. Maxwell has been at the center of a crushing onslaught of press articles, television specials, and social media posts painting her in the most damning light possible and prejudging her guilt. The sheer volume of media reporting mentioning Ms. Maxwell is staggering."
The filing also said Maxwell stood at risk of catching Covid-19 in her "hell hole" Brooklyn jail and denied that she had been in hiding, insisting she has "maintained regular contact" with the federal government since the day after Epstein's arrest. The claim that she had not been in contact with Epstein for a decade is contradictory to a separate lawsuit filed by one of Epstein's victims which included evidence that she had emailed him as recently as 2015.
Prosecutors arguing against bail said she presented an "extreme risk of flight," highlighting that she had been found in possession of US, UK, and French passports. They also pointed to her having at least 15 bank accounts that were found to have millions that she owned or was associated with in just the last four years.
A hearing on the bail request is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14, at the Manhattan Federal Court. Maxwell is facing charges of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and two counts of perjury. If convicted on the more serious charges, she could face life in prison.