The former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted at the end of 2021 of sex trafficking of minors on behalf of the deceased American financier Jeffrey Epstein, was sentenced on Tuesday to 20 years in prison by a New York court.
Read alsoEpstein case: silences and shadows at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell
Arriving Tuesday noon in front of the gigantic Manhattan courthouse, one of the accusers of the Maxwell-Epstein couple, Sarah Ransome, launched: “
Yes, Ghislaine must die in prison
”.
“
I spent the last 17 years in my own prison for what she, Jeffrey (Epstein) and all the accomplices did to me.
I have been raped several times.
Sometimes I was raped three times a day (...).
There was a constant influx of girls who were raped over and over again
, ”said the young woman who was not a civil party in Ms Maxwell's trial.
Aged 60, incarcerated since 2020, this former figure of the international jet-set and daughter of British press magnate Robert Maxwell received the decision of Judge Alison Nathan of the Manhattan Federal Court.
"Sophisticated Predator"
Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers had filed a request for clemency in mid-June for a sentence of less than 20 years in prison.
Even though the legal texts and case law provide for up to 55 years of imprisonment and the prosecutors had said they were counting on at least 30 years for his "
responsibility
" and his "
total lack of remorse
" for his sexual crimes.
Last attempt on Saturday to escape her fate: Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, asked Judge Nathan for a postponement of the sentencing because her client had been placed "
under surveillance
" in prison due to a risk of "
suicide
".
“
Without justification
”, according to the defense.
The lawyers had also invoked, in vain, the responsibility and the harmful influence of Robert Maxwell - an "
authoritarian
" father who died in 1991 when he mysteriously fell from his yacht - and of Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillionaire financier who committed suicide in prison in New York in August 2019 before his trial for underage sex crimes.
Read alsoEpstein case: silences and shadows at the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell
Ghislaine Maxwell, who is British, American and French, was found guilty on December 29 by the Manhattan court, in particular of sex trafficking of underage girls.
Some victims were as young as 14 in the 1990s and 2000s. Her trial had portrayed her as a '
sophisticated predator
' who knowingly acted to lure and seduce young girls and deliver them to Epstein at his Florida residences. , Manhattan, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands.
"
Jane
", "
Kate
", "
Caroline "
“And Annie Farmer, 42, the only one to speak without a pseudonym, had revealed to the audience their lives damaged by forced sex with Epstein – first sexual massages – when they were between 14 and 17 years, often in the presence of Maxwell.
"The mistake of his life"
Born and raised in a hyperprivileged environment in the United Kingdom, Ghislaine Maxwell again assured this month via her lawyers that she "
had a difficult, traumatic childhood
" and made "
the most serious mistake of her life
" by meeting Epstein.
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were in a relationship in the early 1990s before becoming professional collaborators and accomplices in their sex crimes for nearly thirty years.
The financier, with powerful economic and political networks in the United States and abroad, was himself accused of raping young girls but his suicide extinguished the public action against him.
Arrested in New Hampshire (northeastern United States) in July 2020, Maxwell has since been incarcerated in New York.
Read alsoNo royal return for Prince Andrew, implicated in the Epstein affair
In a separate part of this case with international ramifications, British Prince Andrew, friend of the Maxwell-Epstein pair, sealed an amicable agreement on February 15 - for 13 million dollars according to the
Daily Telegraph
- with the American Virginia Giuffre, herself the alleged victim of the couple, who accused her of having sexually assaulted her in 2001 when she was a minor.
The British royal family has thus avoided a civil trial in New York as resounding as it is embarrassing.
