Ghislaine Maxwell, the former collaborator of Jeffrey Epstein indicted in the United States for trafficking in minors, suffered “physical violence” during a recent search in her cell, her lawyer said on Tuesday in a letter to the judge responsible for the file.
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According to the lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, Ghislaine Maxwell is “at the mercy of a group of guards”, who recently subjected her to “physical violence” during a summary body search in her prison cell Federal District in Brooklyn, New York. The lawyer does not give specific details on this “violence”.
When Ghislaine Maxwell, 59, indicated her intention to report the incident, “the guards threatened her with disciplinary action,” said the lawyer. And a week later, the same team of guards “ordered him to clean his shower, to disinfect it and to scrub the walls with a broom”, in retaliation, according to Mr.me Sternheim.
The lawyer continues to denounce the conditions of detention imposed on this 59-year-old woman, from the jet set, daughter of the late British media magnate Robert Maxwell.
She believes that she is subject to exaggerated surveillance – including a lamp that sweeps the ceiling of her cell every 15 minutes, from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. – because of suspected suicide risks.
The financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sexually assaulting dozens of minors in his luxurious residences, was found hanged dead in his cell in August 2019. The investigation concluded in a suicide and in malfunctions in the functioning of the guards in charge of his surveillance in the Manhattan prison where he was incarcerated.
Arrested in New Hampshire in July 2020, after several months on the run, Ghislaine Maxwell is suspected of having recruited teenage girls for him in several cities around the world.
At the end of last December, federal judge Alison Nathan rejected a new request for release, despite a bail offer totaling some $ 28 million. His trial is scheduled to begin in July 2021.
Ghislaine Maxwell will face six charges, including trafficking in minors and incitement to prostitution, over a period from 1994 to 1997, and having lied under oath in 2016 in the context of civil proceedings. She faces life imprisonment if convicted.