A federal judge on Monday nixed Ghislaine Maxwell’s latest attempt to get out of jail, denying a bail proposal of $28.5 million that her attorneys said represented “all of her and her spouse’s assets, her family’s livelihood and the financial security of her closest friends and family,” the New York Times reports.
Prosecutors opposed the request, as they have since she was jailed in July, saying the British socialite who holds American, British, and French passports is “an extreme flight risk.”
Maxwell, 59, was arrested on a six-count indictment on charges of perjury and sex trafficking for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died of an apparent suicide in jail last summer while awaiting trial on his own sex trafficking charges.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Maxwell’s husband, tech entrepreneur Scott Borgerson, and siblings were preparing to put up millions to get free her from what she has called “intolerable” conditions in jail. She claims she lost weight because she can’t have a vegan diet and is humiliated by being forced to wear paper clothes.
Prosecutors pointed out, however, that Maxwell is released from her cell for 13 hours each day and has her own television, phone, shower, and not one, but two computers that only she accesses, the Times said.
“Those conditions set her far apart from general population inmates,” prosecutors wrote, “not to mention other inmates in protective custody.”
Prosecutors also countered defense attorneys’ claim that their evidence against her was weak by noting they had three victims prepared to testify about Maxwell’s role “in Epstein’s criminal scheme to sexually abuse them as minors.”
Each victim would describe how Maxwell befriended them and how “the presence of an adult woman manipulated her into entering an abusive situation,” the prosecutors wrote.
Maxwell’s attorneys argued to US District Court Judge Allison J. Nathan that their client was not a flight risk.
“Ms. Maxwell vehemently maintains her innocence and is committed to defending herself,” they wrote. “She wants nothing more than to remain in this country to fight the allegations against her.”
But Nathan sided with the prosecution, saying it “met its burden of persuasion that the defendant poses a flight risk.”
Maxwell’s trial is expected to begin next summer.
Read more about Maxwell on CrimeOnline.
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[Featured image: Ghislaine Maxwell/Corredor99/MediaPunch /IPX]
