Jurors at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial on Tuesday asked for transcripts of testimony given by three women who say she groomed them as underage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.
“We would like the transcripts/testimony of ‘Jane,’ Annie and Carolyn,” the jury reportedly wrote in their first note to Judge Alison Nathan shortly after beginning their first full day of deliberations at the trial of Maxwell, a British socialite, in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Jane is a pseudonym for one of the women who testified without using her real first or last name. The other two women testified using their first names only.
The jury, comprised of six men and six women, began deliberating late Monday afternoon after hearing closing arguments and instructions from Nathan on the law, but went home for the day soon afterward.
Maxwell, 59, is charged with crimes related to her alleged recruiting years ago of the three girls for abuse by Epstein, the disgraced money manager who killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019 while awaiting his own trial on child sex trafficking charges.
“Ghislaine Maxwell was dangerous,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe said in closing arguments.
Moe called Maxwell a “sophisticated predator who knew exactly what she was doing.”
Maxwell did not take the witness stand at her trial, which began Nov. 29, telling Nathan that there was no need to do so because prosecutors had failed to prove their case against her after several weeks of evidence and testimony.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is an innocent woman, wrongfully accused of crimes she did not commit,” her attorney, Laura Menninger, told jurors Monday.
Maxwell has been held without bail since her arrest in July 2020.
Dozens of women have said they were sexually abused by Epstein at his luxurious properties in Manhattan, Florida, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
A former employee at Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, home testified at Maxwell’s trial that she was the “lady of the house.”
Maxwell and Epstein for years had socialized with well-known, wealthy people, including former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as Prince Andrew of Britain.
Andrew is being sued in Manhattan federal court by one of Epstein’s accusers, who claims she was ordered to have sex with the royal by Maxwell when she was underage.
Andrew denies the allegation.