MIAMI—She’s been called Jeffrey Epstein’s madam, the woman who recruited girls for his sexual appetites, and at times his social planner and household organizer in places ranging from New York to Palm Beach, Florida.
“If I were drafting an indictment against her, it would be the same conspiracy to traffic in underage minors,” said David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami. “That’s what it is. That’s what the conspiracy would be.”
An attorney for Maxwell did not respond Friday to a request for comment.
Maxwell, 57, is an elusive character whose father, publisher Robert Maxwell, died in 1991 after falling off his yacht near the Canary Islands. It turned out that he had illegally looted pension funds from his businesses, according to news accounts at the time.
The name of that yacht: Lady Ghislaine.
A Robert Maxwell biographer, Tom Bower, says Ghislaine Maxwell was the youngest of his children and a favorite of her father—hence, the yacht’s name.
“I think in his home, she never really learned the difference between right and wrong,” Bower told National Public Radio recently. “And the other tragedy for her was that she was dominated by him, and she learned from him to worship wealth and money and power and influence and really had very little sentiment for what might be called the little people.”
That was only one more part of a sordid saga spanning decades, with Maxwell a key part of it, court documents show.
Juan Alessi, who managed Epstein’s home in Palm Beach for years, said in a deposition that Maxwell was essentially the lady of the house.
“She would tell me, I am going to take care of the house,” Alessi said in the deposition, adding later that he drove Maxwell to spas around South Florida to look for young women who could do “massages” for Epstein —their code for sexual acts.
“I remember one occasion or two occasions she would say to me, ‘Juan, give me a list of all the spas in Palm Beach County,’” Alessi said. “And I will drive her from one to the other one.”
In one of the lawsuits, Virginia Roberts Giuffre laid out in detail what was believed to be Maxwell’s role in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking ring, which other women have echoed in similar claims. Giuffre, 15 at the time, says she was working at a Mar-a-Lago club when she was approached by Maxwell about a way to earn good money: learn massage therapy and get to know Epstein as a man who could give her a bright future.
Giuffre says in a sworn affidavit that she was trained by Maxwell and Epstein to become “everything a man wanted me to be” and that she was flown on Epstein’s private planes to his properties in New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Paris, and New York.
Maxwell has vehemently denied claims by Giuffre and the others in court documents. “The allegations made against me are abhorrent and entirely untrue and I ask that they stop,” she said in a 2011 news release.
Maxwell has said nothing publicly since Epstein’s death and could not be reached for comment.
Maxwell is not charged with any crime, but New York prosecutors have said that Epstein’s death does not end their investigation into who might have helped him gain access to so many dozens of girls. There are other names on that list who could face prosecution, as well.
In any event, lawyers for Epstein’s victims say Maxwell will not skate away from her past.
“It’s very important to hold all Epstein enablers accountable,” said attorney Lisa Bloom, who has filed lawsuits against Epstein’s estate on behalf of several of his accusers. “Justice for victims includes justice for everyone who knowingly made his predations possible.”
