Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's Alleged Madam?
Update July 2, 2020: This morning, it was reported that Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the FBI in New Hampshire on charges related to her association with Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested about a year ago for child sex trafficking. Epstein died by suicide while in custody last August. Maxwell who was a longtime friend and employee of Epstein's, has largely disappeared from public life. She is expected to appear in a federal court later today, sources told NBC4 New York.
Originally published July 10, 2019:
Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite with vast connections among the international elite, is in the news this week for her longstanding association to the billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, who has just been charged with child sex-trafficking charges.
It's not Maxwell's first time in the spotlight however—she became a household name in her home country in November 1991. That was the month her father, publishing and media mogul Robert Maxwell, tumbled over the side of a yacht he had named after her, the Lady Ghislaine (pronounced "ghee-lane"), in an apparent suicide.
As owner of the Daily Mirror, Maxwell père had been Rupert Murdoch’s chief rival in the British tabloid market. But his finances had been extended past their breaking point, and after Maxwell’s death, it emerged that he may have unlawfully raided the Mirror’s employee pension fund in an unsuccessful attempt to keep his empire from collapsing.
Overnight, the Czech immigrant, who had escaped the Nazis and even served as a member of Britain’s parliament, became synonymous with financial misdeeds, leaving his family legacy and name in ruins.
(Maxwell had been a rotund man with ambitions of ascending to a peerage in the House of Lords. The joke in London media after his death was: “Why did Robert Maxwell jump overboard? Because he always wanted to be a pier.”)
His daughter Ghislaine, meanwhile, reportedly never believed her father took his own life. Others, like the author Martin Dillon, theorized he was murdered, suggesting he may have been an asset for the Israeli intelligence service, or was in the crosshairs of unspecified international villains. Despite strong belief in the suicide theory, especially in the media, an inquest later found that Maxwell died from a heart attack and drowning.
For her part, Ghislaine Maxwell refused to be shamed, tenaciously clinging to her place in society.
“She was a big part of the jet-set,” said one person who has known her for 15 years. "I would see her in St. Barth’s, on Paul Allen’s yacht"—the Octopus, an infamous 414-foot floating pleasure palace then owned by the late Microsoft co-founder—“and at Heidi Klum’s Halloween party in New York.”
The friend described Ghislaine, now 57, as a chic brunette who was friendly, chatty, and part of a fashionable clique. Much like Epstein, her social circle also encompassed Britain’s Prince Andrew; a Palm Beach set which included Donald Trump; and the Clinton family—she even attended Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding.
“But the thing is, to hang around those billionaire guys, you either have to be sleeping with them or you’re finding them girls. There is no in-between when you’re in that crowd,” said the friend, referring not to Ghislaine individually but the dark habits and rituals common at the highest echelons of power. “The other thing you can do is get them into parties. It’s the private jet equivalent of grass, gas or ass,” the source added, riffing on the ‘70s maxim of how hitchhikers could compensate drivers for their ride.
As Epstein finds himself facing new charges relating to his history of sex with underage girls, the narrative playing out in the op-ed pages and on social media, promoted by everyone from New York Times op-ed columnist Michelle Goldberg to the actress Ellen Barkin, depicts Ghislaine as someone closely tied to the billionaire financier's activities.
But the accusations against her are more than just media speculation; she has also been called out in several civil suits. In 2015, one Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, alleged Ghislaine Maxwell acted as a "madame" for Epstein and his wealthy cohort; Maxwell denied the accusation then. In the ongoing defamation litigation between Giuffre and Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz, two additional Epstein accusers, Sarah Ransone and Maria Farmer, single out Maxwell in their sworn affidavits, with Ransone alleging Maxwell "recruited" young women to fly to Epstein's private estate in the Virgin Islands.
"Once they were there, [Ghislaine] appeared to be in charge of their activities, including what they did, who they did it with, and how they were supposed to stay in line," Ransone said. (Dershowitz denies Giuffre's allegations.)
In her affidavit in support of Giuffre's suit against Dershowitz, Farmer claims that in 1996 both Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein sexually molested her, then aged 26, and her sister, then 15. She reported the incident to the FBI, but says no action was taken. "It took a significant amount of bravery for me to make that call because I knew how incredibly powerful and influential both Epstein and Maxwell were," Farmer said. (In a blockbuster investigative piece by the Miami Herald, Epstein's other victims maintain a plea deal in 2008 between his lawyers and federal prosecutors largely absolved him of punishment, and conversely silenced their testimony; that arrangement is now the subject of a review by the Justice Department.)
Throughout the Epstein saga, Maxwell has denied any wrongdoing. “I understand newspapers need stories to sell copies,” the daughter of a former tabloid publisher said, apparently without irony, during a spate of damaging stories in 2011. “It is well known that certain newspapers live by the adage, ‘Why let the truth get in the way of a good story.’ However, the allegations made against me are abhorrent and entirely untrue and I ask that they stop.” Though back in 2015 Maxwell denied the allegations by Giuffre, who sued her for defamation, all court records remained sealed until last week, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the documents released.
The dust has yet to settle on the latest round of charges against Epstein, who was arrested after stepping off his private plane in New Jersey on Saturday, returning from a vacation in Paris. No additional criminal charges have been filed against anyone else.
At the same time, investigators raided his East 71st Street townhouse, which they are attempting to seize. He faces up to 45 years in prison.
And Ghislaine? For the moment, she remains silent, and has made no public statement since Epstein’s re-arrest.
It seems unlikely that she will be soon be returning to the international party circuit. For the socialite who was born the daughter of a mogul on Christmas Day in 1961, attended Oxford University, befriended presidents and royalty, and survived the downfall of her family’s fortune to dance with billionaires on their yachts and private jets, the music may finally be coming to an end.
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