British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of serving to procure underage women for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, faces trial Monday on prices that might deliver as much as 80 years in jail.
Maxwell, 59, has spent the final 16 months awaiting trial in solitary confinement on the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn. Final week she was denied bail for the fourth time, regardless of claims from her attorneys that she has been subjected to bodily and emotional abuse by jail guards, unsanitary dwelling situations and inedible meals.
Prosecutors dismissed the claims as “rhetoric and anecdotes higher suited to tabloids than briefs. The place authorized arguments will be discovered, they’re cursory and unpersuasive.”
Maxwell pressed her claims additional in an interview with the Daily Mail revealed Saturday.
“I’ve been assaulted and abused for nearly a yr and a half,” she instructed the British tabloid. “They feed me rotten meals. One apple had maggots in it.”
The death of Jeffrey Epstein: Fact, fiction, confusion and a warden reassigned
She described a “pleasant rat” that routinely sat subsequent to her on an open sewer as she went to the bathroom.
“I instructed the guards, however nothing was carried out till the rat popped out and charged a guard, who screamed in terror,” Maxwell stated. “Lastly, the sewer drain was coated.”
Kristie Breshears, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, instructed USA TODAY that for privateness, security and safety causes she couldn’t talk about situations of confinement for a selected inmate. However she wrote in an electronic mail that the bureau “takes allegations of employees misconduct significantly.”
“Incidents of potential felony exercise or misconduct inside BOP services are totally investigated for potential administrative self-discipline or felony prosecution,” Breshears wrote.
Epstein, 66, was indicted in July 2019, accused of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage women at his mansions in Manhattan, Palm Seashore, Florida, and elsewhere from 2002 to 2005. The costs included intercourse trafficking and conspiracy that might have landed Epstein in jail for many years. However he killed himself in his Manhattan prison cell a month later.
Prince Andrew won’t face any action from British police following sexual assault allegations
Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 on prices that embrace transporting a minor for the needs of felony sexual exercise and conspiring to entice minors to journey to interact in unlawful intercourse acts. Maxwell, who denies the accusations, has been in custody ever since.
“Maxwell was amongst Epstein’s closest associates and helped him exploit women who had been as younger as 14 years outdated,” stated Audrey Strauss, performing U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, on the time.
Jury choice in her case begins in earnest Monday in a Manhattan federal courtroom, with opening statements tentatively set for Nov. 29. Choose Alison Nathan has repeatedly denied her bail, saying she was a flight danger.
The saga has made a giant splash in Britain, the place police introduced final month they are going to not take any action against Prince Andrew after a overview prompted by an Epstein accuser who claims the prince sexually assaulted her.
Virginia Giuffre claims she was trafficked by Epstein to have intercourse with Andrew in London in 2001, when she was 17 and a minor beneath U.S. legislation. She is suing the prince, who has denied the declare.
Contributing: The Related Press
