Who is Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman at the center of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal

The 'socialite' behind Jeffrey Epstein 3:38

London (CNN) - The socialite British Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in connection with an investigation into her ex - boyfriend, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's.

Maxwell, 58, has been named in multiple lawsuits by women who said they were abused by the discredited US financier, who committed suicide last August.

The woman was arrested Thursday morning in New Hampshire, said Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the United States Attorney's Office.

Maxwell, whose whereabouts were unknown since Epstein's arrest last year, has been investigated for allegedly facilitating the recruitment of girls and women by Epstein.

• Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's confidant, arrested and charged

Following Epstein's suicide in August 2019, public pressure has increased to arrest those who could have helped him, perhaps including Maxwell and a clique of young women who allegedly worked under his responsibility, not only for his actions, but also for their own roles.

In that investigation, Maxwell has remained an important target. She has denied committing any crime, and, in a statement, has called at least one of her accusers "a liar."

So who is Maxwell? Why was he hiding and what accusations are he facing?

Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell?

The convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein with the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

The British socialite was born in 1961 and grew up in the idyllic Oxfordshire countryside. She is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a Czech newspaper magnate and British legislator, who died under mysterious circumstances. The media mogul fell from his luxurious yacht, called "Lady Ghislaine", near the Canary Islands, in 1991. It was posthumously discovered that he had committed a massive pension fraud against his employees.

According to Roy Greenslade, who worked for the media mogul as editor of The Daily Mirror, in the early 1990s, Maxwell "adored" Ghislaine "in a way that he did not do with his [other] children."

"He was a monstrous father," recalls Greenslade. "He treated his whole family very badly." But when it came to the youngest of her nine children, Maxwell "treated her with more leniency than any of them."

In his biography of the tycoon, "Maxwell: The Rise and Fall of Robert Maxwell and his Empire," Greenslade recalls one particular night when he was sitting in an office with Maxwell and the reckless teenager entered. He says Maxwell gave his daughter a reprimand for "always taking risks, doing stupid and dangerous things" after having a near-fatal accident after diving into a boat.

"She was quite smart in dealing with him," Greenslade explains, adding that she always spoke gently to her father in a way that was difficult for her to challenge.

After Ghislaine left, Greenslade says that Maxwell turned to him with pride in his voice: "She is like me."

That, Greenslade says, is evidence of perhaps why he favored her more than others.

The media magnate died in 1991 with an investigation that ruled that his death was due to a heart attack combined with accidental drowning. However, some believe that Maxwell's death was a suicide with his business empire on the brink of ruin.

There was applause at the time for the way Ghislaine handled the family tragedy. "The people who were there at the time (when Maxwell died) said that she treated him brilliantly," Greenslade said. "Dry eyes, dealing well with the press."

After his father's death, Maxwell moved to the United States.

"He probably ran out of money," says Greenslade, despite many speculating that he earned income from a secret trust.

In the United States, Maxwell lived a public life and socialized in exclusive circles that included people connected to politics.

According to eyewitness accounts, Maxwell was invited to Chelsea Clinton's wedding and was even taken backstage to the summit of the Global Clinton Initiative in 2009. However, Bari Lurie, a spokesperson for Chelsea Clinton, says the only reason why The one Clinton knew Maxwell was because the socialite was dating a friend of hers.

Maxwell was also photographed in 2000 with Donald Trump and his future wife, Melania Trump, alongside Epstein.

Maxwell was also in the background of the infamous photograph of Prince Andrew, showing him with his arms around the waist of a young woman named Virginia Roberts. Roberts alleges that she was trafficked by Epstein, with Maxwell's help, and forced to have sex with her friends, including Prince Andrew, when she was a minor. The prince has emphatically denied having sex with Roberts and says "he does not remember the photograph being taken."

In 2012 Maxwell founded the charity, the TerraMar Project, which sought to promote ocean conservation. However, the nonprofit ceased operations in December 2019, according to records from the United Kingdom Company of Companies. The same year, federal prosecutors in New York revealed a criminal charge against Epstein of having operated a sex trafficking network between 2002 and 2005, where he paid girls as young as 14 to have sex with him.

How is she connected to Jeffrey Epstein?

Ghislaine Maxwell was the ex-girlfriend who became Epstein's social partner, who died by suicide in her prison cell, at age 66, while awaiting trial on federal charges of sexual abuse of minor women and running a trafficking ring. sexual. She had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The couple are said to have split up in the 1990s, although the socialite remained close to the pedophile. Her name has been mentioned frequently in a memoir of documents that were revealed earlier this year alleging that she was a supplier to Epstein and other high-profile people.

In 2003 Epstein described Maxwell as her best friend in profile with Vanity Fair.

According to several people in wealthy Manhattan circles, including two of his friends, Maxwell introduced Epstein to many of the social figures in his life.

What allegations does Maxwell face?

Maxwell is charged with incitement and conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sexual acts, transportation, and conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and two counts of perjury, according to a federal indictment. from the United States, revealed this Thursday.

"In particular, from at least approximately 1994 to at least approximately 1997, Maxwell aided, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls, among other things, by helping Epstein recruit, prepare, and ultimately , abusing victims that Maxwell and Epstein knew were under the age of 18, ”says the indictment. Those victims, according to the indictment, included girls as young as 14.

A Maxwell attorney, Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Virginia Roberts, now called Virginia Giuffre, accused Maxwell of being the person who introduced him to Epstein and allegedly forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew when he was 17 years old.

She says she was taken to London in 2001 where she was introduced to the prince and went dancing with him, Epstein and Maxwell at a nightclub.

In a defamation case, filed in 2015, against Maxwell, which was settled in 2017, after the judge ruled against a motion for summary judgment filed by Maxwell, Giuffre says she was "forced to have sex" with the Duke of York when she was a minor in “three separate geographic locations,” including London, New York, and the United States Virgin Islands.

Giuffre says that when he left London's Tramp nightclub, where he danced with Prince Andrew, Maxwell gave him instructions. "In the car, Ghislaine told me that I had to do for Andrés what I did for Jeffrey and that made me sick," Giuffre said, adding that she had sex with the prince at Maxwell's home in the Belgravia area in London.

The Duke of York has vehemently denied all of Giuffre's allegations, telling the BBC last year that "he did not recall meeting this lady, none."

Buckingham Palace said Thursday they would not comment on Maxwell's arrest. Maxwell has not been charged in Britain and she and her representatives had previously denied that she was involved in sexual abuse or sex trafficking. A Maxwell attorney did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

In court filings, Maxwell and her attorney also portrayed Giuffre as an unreliable narrator, claiming that there are errors on certain dates and figures that she provided.

Jennifer Araoz, who is suing Epstein's estate, alleges that Maxwell, along with others, acted as Epstein's accomplices.

Araoz says that his "network of facilitators" stole his youth, identity, innocence and self-esteem.

"While I am angry that Epstein's death means that he will never answer me personally in a court of law, my determination to seek justice is only strengthened," she previously told reporters last August. "My history and my experiences, those who allowed and facilitated their criminal behavior, none of which is diminished or immunized simply because they apparently chose to kill themselves."

She alleges that Epstein repeatedly committed sexual assault and battery against her when she was 14 and 15 years old and that he forcibly raped her. Araoz's attorneys say she has not interacted with Maxwell, but the lawsuit alleges that Maxwell "participated in and helped Epstein maintain and protect his sex trafficking network, ensuring that approximately three girls per day were available for his sexual pleasure."

She also alleges that she provided "organizational support to Epstein's sex trafficking network, identifying and hiring recruiters of underage girls" and "scheduling appointments with these underage girls" for Epstein's "sexual pleasure" as well as "intimidating potential witnesses to Epstein's sex trafficking operation."

An enigma

Despite the charges brought against Maxwell, it remained largely an enigma whose recent whereabouts were shrouded in mystery, until his arrest on Thursday.

For a woman who once delighted in the attention she got when she mingled with some of the most high-profile politicians and celebrities, Maxwell did an amazing job of hiding from the public eye.

The tabloids were fascinated by his whereabouts. Last year, a British newspaper offered £ 10,000 (about $ 13,100) to anyone who could reveal its location, while others claimed it had been traced from Massachusetts to the Brazilian Riviera.

Despite the rumors, only one photograph of Maxwell emerged amid the controversy, when the New York Post published a story last year that showed her eating at a fast-food chain in the United States. But even then, questions arose about the veracity of the photo.

Jeffrey Epstein