Prosecutors have asked a Manhattan federal judge to send Jeffrey Epstein gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell to prison for at least 30 years.
Maxwell, 60, was found guilty on five of six counts of sex trafficking and perjury last December, charges that alleged she helped Epstein groom and abuse at least four girls between 1994 and 2004, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Maxwell’s attorneys argued last week for a much lighter sentence, citing what they called “an exceptionally intrusive prison regime which undermined her dignity, health, safety, and psychological well-being.”
The prosecutors, however, said those complaints were born from Maxwell’s “extraordinary privilege” from a lifetime of money and all the luxury it could buy her, according to The New York Times.
“It is no wonder, then, that she found jail jarring,” the prosecutors wrote. “Going from being waited on hand and foot to incarceration is undoubtedly a shocking and unpleasant experience.”
They claimed that Maxwell’s riches “dazzled the girls from struggling families who became the defendant and Epstein’s victims” and provided a “cover of respectability to Epstein that lulled the victims and their families into a false sense of security.”
And further, they said, Maxwell deserves a harsher sentence because of her “utter lack of remorse.”
“Instead of showing even a hint of acceptance of responsibility,” the office of Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote, “the defendant makes a desperate attempt to cast blame wherever else she can.”
Maxwell denied the charges against her and argued that she was being held responsible for Epstein’s crimes in his stead, since Epstein died from an apparent suicide while awaiting trial in 2019. But investigators were already on Maxwell’s trail by that time, and she was arrested while hiding out at a New Hampshire mansion in 2020.
“Maxwell was an adult who made her own choices,” the government prosecutors said. “She made the choice to sexually exploit numerous underage girls.”
Maxwell’s sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday.
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[Featured image: FILE – In this July 2, 2020, file photo, Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a news conference in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)]
