Only Ghislaine Maxwell knows how much further Epstein’s network reached

When she met Ghislaine Maxwell, ‘Jane’ was fourteen years old. Maxwell seemed like “an older sister,” she said. She took her to the cinema, bought her clothes, underwear. London ‘Kate’ was seventeen when she met Maxwell. She looked up to her relaxed elegance. “That’s how I wanted to be.” As they drank tea, Maxwell said her friend enjoys helping young people.

‘Jane’ and ‘Kate’ testified under a pseudonym – with two other women – in a New York court against Maxwell in 2021. Their stories, recorded by The New York Timesare similar: they had, perhaps for the first time in their lives, the feeling of being seen, and wanted to do their best for their new girlfriend. Then the abuse started.

During a subsequent visit by ‘Kate’ to Maxwell, Epstein sat in the room in sweatpants. Maxwell let her squeeze his foot. Epstein: “Well, you can definitely do my shoulders sometime.” Shortly afterwards, Maxwell called to ask if she could fill in because Epstein’s masseuse had canceled. That was the first time he wanted sex from her. It would go on for years, sometimes Maxwell would join in. “I just didn’t know how to say no,” said ‘Kate’. Maxwell kept making light of it. “As if it was all a crazy joke.”

In 2016, Maxwell said she had only read about Epstein’s alleged abuse “in the papers.”

Jeffrey Epstein, sentenced to a short prison sentence in 2008 for prostitution with a minor, has never had to answer for these charges. In 2019, while awaiting trial, he committed suicide in his cell, according to the official statement.

In 2016, Maxwell said she had only read about Epstein’s alleged abuse “in the papers.” “I hired assistants, stylists, chefs, cleaners, pool attendants and pilots.” And yes, women too for his daily massages. “But as far as I was concerned, everyone who came to his house was an adult professional.”

Two years after Epstein’s death, she continued to deny that she helped him groomingtrafficking and sexual abuse of minors. It did not convince the jury. She was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

British and Norwegian royals

Riddles remain surrounding Epstein. How did he get so much money? What made him irresistible to Wall Street bankers, Trump and Clinton, figures from academia and the arts, foreign politicians, tech entrepreneurs, top lawyers, British and Norwegian royals, Edward Luce wondered in the Financial Times. “Epstein’s network is an MRI scan of the establishment.”

And why did Epstein’s network remain intact after his 2008 conviction? Elon Musk asked him in 2012 when “the wildest party on your island” would be. “Next time, bring your harem,” billionaire Richard Branson emailed his neighbor in the Virgin Islands in 2013. Powerful Labor politician Peter Mandelson continued to send fawning emails and even stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan home while the owner was in jail.

And what was the chemistry between Epstein and Maxwell, who couldn’t live without each other long after their love affair ended?

The apple of her father’s eye

Ghislaine Noëlle Marion Maxwell was born in 1961 as the ninth child of press baron Robert Maxwell and his French wife Elisabeth ‘Betty’ Meynard. Two days after her birth, her eldest brother Michael, then fifteen, was seriously injured in a car accident. He was in a coma for seven years until his death. Ghislaine initially received little attention and had anorexia as a toddler, Betty wrote in her memoirs. „Mummy, I exist“, she seems to have said as a six-year-old. Her mother tried to make up for it. “She is the only one of my children that I [sindsdien] totally spoiled.”

She was the apple of her father’s eye – he even named his motor yacht after her: Lady Ghislaine – but he took out his anger on the entire family. She told of a room in their gigantic house, with a table on which lay a whip, a ruler, a belt, a walking stick. They were allowed to choose themselves.

Of course she went to boarding schools from the age of eight, after which many British ones upperclass-children hardly speak to their parents anymore. And to Oxford, something with languages ​​and history, and lots of other fun things.

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Robert Maxwell, born Ján Hoch in 1923, was a Jewish Czechoslovak whose family died in Auschwitz. He became enormously wealthy as a publisher of scientific publications and newspapers, including the British Mirror Group and the New York Daily News. He was a political octopus, with tentacles in all parties. And he maintained close ties with Israel that may have gone beyond business.

But his fortune was built on sand. He camouflaged failed investments and debts by stealing hundreds of millions from the pension fund of his newspapers. That came to light in 1991, after his body was found in the sea near the Canary Islands, where he was anchored with his yacht. Autopsies turn up nothing. His family still doesn’t want to believe he accidentally fell overboard.

Maxwell-imperium

The Maxwell empire was bankrupt, the house was sold, the family was in ruins. But a savior angel, whom Robert had met in New York, came to the family’s aid. This “American businessman” and “former bachelor of the month” is also the one who, a year later, boards the Concorde with the daughter to fly supersonically to New York with caviar and bubbles. “It is to this man that thirty-year-old Ghislaine turned to ease the sorrow of her father’s disgrace,” wrote a tabloid.

“At Epstein’s side, Ghislaine is building a respectable position in New York, which would be impossible in London, where the wounds inflicted by her father are the deepest,” the newspaper said. “But in New York they worship the descendants of criminals as much as the criminals themselves.”

It was logical that she found support with Epstein, writes Julie K. Brown, investigative journalist at the Miami Heraldwho continued to delve into the Epstein file after his first light sentence. “Like her father, Epstein was a charismatic figure who enchanted men and women with his charm and intelligence. And he also had a dark, violent and dominant side.” All three shared unscrupulousness.

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Epstein offered her access to the kind of life she had led before. Conversely, he could use her well. She brought charm and good manners, a touch of European aristocracy, mischievous humor. She carelessly connected people – a born ‘social broker’. And she brought in her network. Andrew, second son of the British monarch. Mick Jagger. Peter Mandelson was more than happy to share his secrets.

“Epstein operated in three circles,” writes FT-journalist Robert Shrimsley: “a circle of money, one of power, and a circle of sex.” Some contacts were in one circle, others in several, including, it could be, a Donald Trump. The fact that Epstein was able to move seamlessly through all three circles was thanks to Maxwell. It brought him money, new contacts and a treasure kompromat which must show how and where he could have monetized it.

Loyal person

They broke up around 1994, but Maxwell stayed. She ran his households in New York, Florida, New Mexico and on the private island of Little Saint James, his diary, his dinner parties and his erotic life. “I am a very loyal person,” she said. In 1995, Epstein named one of his companies Ghislaine Corporation. He bought one town house for her on the Upper East Side, not far from his. During the years they were together and worked, he paid her thirty million dollars.

After Epstein’s prison sentence, they no longer appeared in public together. Maxwell showed up at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and next to Elon Musk at the Oscars. She began an affair with computer billionaire Ted Waitt and started a vague foundation to save the oceans, TerraMar, about which she, somewhat unsteadily, gave a TEDx Talk. She became vegan.

Immediately after Epstein’s arrest in 2019, TerraMar shut itself down. Maxwell disappeared from the face of the earth, but was arrested in 2020 at an estate that she had paid for in cash. From 2015 onwards, the legal net also closed around her. Before her 2021 trial, she was already (co-)indicted in no fewer than eight cases. The first was from Virginia Giuffre who accused Maxwell of recruiting her for sex with Epstein and many others, including Prince Andrew.

Epstein blames Maxwell for not following his advice because her problems are her own fault

„[Mijn advocaten] want me to distance myself from you and say that I knew nothing about massage with Andrew,” she emails to Epstein. He later coldly accuses her that her problems are her own fault because she does not follow his advice: “You are testing my patience.” Maxwell settled for millions. Andrew reportedly paid Giuffre £12 million. Giuffre took her own life last year.

As long as the Epstein Files remain partly closed, Maxwell is the treasurer of the darkest secrets. Such as the question of what role Trump played. Last year, Maxwell told Todd Blanche, second in command at the Justice Department, that she had never caught Trump engaging in inappropriate behavior. A week later she was transferred to a prison in Texas with such a lenient regime that it was a country club is mentioned. It suggested that Maxwell is hoping for a presidential pardon in exchange for exonerating Trump.

Monday she appears againby video link, at the House committee investigating the Epstein case. Since the committee did not want to grant her immunity, it is believed she will invoke the Fifth Amendment, pleading the Fifththe right to remain silent if you do not want to accuse yourself of a crime.

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