Ghislaine Maxwell trial

[Volkonski]

Ghislaine Maxwell faces new criminal charges as U.S. expands indictment

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-peop ... ce=twitter

U.S. prosecutors on Monday expanded their criminal case against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, unveiling a new indictment adding charges of sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor.

Maxwell, the longtime associate of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, now faces an eight-count indictment that also accuses her of enabling his sexual misconduct, as well as perjury.

Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The original indictment, to which Maxwell had pleaded not guilty, accused her of helping Epstein recruit and groom three teenage girls for sex between 1994 and 1997.

[Kendra]

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/gh ... ds-reveal/

When federal prosecutors leveled sex-trafficking charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for the first time in late March, her defense attorneys howled that the government sandbagged them with a late-breaking superseding indictment with more serious offenses than Jeffrey Epstein ever faced. On Friday, prosecutors revealed why those new charges landed so close to her upcoming trial in July 2020: A new person, identified in court papers only as “Minor Victim-4,” agreed to speak to the government for the first time last summer.

“Specifically, although Minor Victim-4 had previously been interviewed once in or about 2007 during the Florida investigation […] Minor Victim-4 did not agree to be interviewed by the government until July 2020,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an eight-page memo on Friday. “The Government then conducted two preliminary interviews with Minor Victim-4 by video teleconference in the summer of 2020. Because of the difficult nature of the interview topics, however, the government was not able to fully debrief Minor Victim-4 over video.”

[LM K]

Maxwell continues to struggle with her incarceration.

Prosecutors hit back at Ghislaine Maxwell's claims of being mistreated in jail, saying she keeps her cell 'very dirty' and doesn't flush her toilet

Prosecutors responded to Ghislaine Maxwell's complaints of mistreatment in jail with a long letter on Tuesday, countering her claims and accusing her of not keeping her cell clean.

The British socialite is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, on charges connected to her former associate, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in Manhattan while awaiting his own trial in August 2019.

In an attempt to get Maxwell released on bail as she awaits trial, which is scheduled to start in July, her lawyers recently complained about "horrific conditions" in the jail.

They said Maxwell was "being kept awake all night to make sure she does not commit suicide" and is "stuck in de facto" solitary confinement due to COVID-19 safety measures.


Maxwell's lawyers also complained about their client not getting enough food and said the food she does receive is not being heated properly, "rendering the food inedible."

"The overall conditions of detention have had a detrimental impact on Ms. Maxwell's health and overall well-being; and she is withering to a shell of her former self — losing weight, losing hair, and losing her ability to concentrate," the attorney Bobbi C. Sternheim wrote in a letter to the court on February 16.

On Tuesday, prosecutors responded to the complaints in a letter of their own, addressing each complaint, according to court documents viewed by Insider.

They said Maxwell is allowed out of her cell every day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and has the option to go outside for exercise. They added that even with COVID-19 precautions, Maxwell has been able to meet with her lawyers in person, though they've decided to do only video meetings.

As to Maxwell's assertion that she's not getting sleep, prosecutors said guards are required to check on her every 15 minutes during the night, but she wears a sleeping mask and note that she "regularly sleeps through these nighttime wellness checks."

Prosecutors said that Maxwell has been assessed as "physically healthy" and has maintained a normal weight throughout her stay at the detention center.

They said her weight has fluctuated between the 130s and 140s. She recorded her lowest weight, 133 pounds, in July 2020, which is considered a normal BMI. Her weight last week was 137.5 pounds, they added. (According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Maxwell would have to weigh less than 118 pounds to be considered clinically underweight.)

Jail staff have also "not observed the defendant experience any noticeable hair loss."

Furthermore, the prosecutors suggested that Maxwell has herself to blame for some of the conditions she's living in.

In a footnote, they detailed how staff had asked her to clean her cell at one point when it became "very dirty."

"Among other things, MDC staff noted that the defendant frequently did not flush her toilet after using it, which caused the cell to smell," the letter reads.

Prosecutors have been continuing to build their case against Maxwell, who has been accused of grooming girls for Epstein between 1994 and 2004. She's also been accused of abusing one of the girls.

Last month, prosecutors filed additional charges against Maxwell based on the allegations of a fourth accuser who was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse.

Maxwell has remained in jail over fears she would be a flight risk in part due to her British and French citizenship, which she has offered to give up.

[zekeb]

Yesbutt. Maybe she's never used a toilet other than the self-flushing variety.

[Maybenaut]

Yesbutt. Maybe she's never used a toilet other than the self-flushing variety.

Flushing is for little people, and servants.

[keith]

Words to live by...

If its brown
Flush it down.

If its yellow
Let it mellow.

[Kendra]

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/gh ... ell-judge/

Ghislaine Maxwell’s latest requests to postpone her trial have stressed out victims who want closure in their decades-old cases, federal prosecutors told a judge on the eve of Maxwell’s next court date.

Since being hit with new sex-trafficking claims that both introduced a “Minor Victim-4” and extended the length of the charged conspiracy, Maxwell’s lawyers demanded to postpone the trial date and won a motion to split the trial in two: one for allegations that she groomed and abused Epstein’s victims and another accusing her of lying about that twice under oath.

Federal prosecutors told a judge there is no need to delay the jury on the first issue now that the case has been divided.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Words to live by...

If its brown
Flush it down.

If its yellow
Let it mellow.

My brother and Hubby chanted this in chorus recently. News to me!

[LM K]

I think Maxwell is likely to go to prison for a very long time. There is so much evidence against her.

It will be interesting to watch the trial. I'm curious about the defense. It can't be a good thing for Maxwell that she and her lawyers have been pouring over at least 3 million pages of evidence.

These new charges include interviews with 250 witnesses. That's a lot of new evidence.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Maybe Ghislaine is truthier than we thought.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny ... story.html

NYC federal jails are run by ‘morons,’ says judge after inmate describes horrors

New York City’s two federal jails are run by “morons,” a furious judge declared at a recent sentencing, saying the U.S. Attorney General himself should be aware of the “disgusting, inhuman” conditions at the lockups.

Manhattan Federal Judge Colleen McMahon said incompetence by the Justice Department and its Bureau of Prisons made it impossible to impose a fair sentence on Tiffany Days, 40, convicted in a drug-dealing conspiracy case in the Highbridge section of the Bronx.

The judge’s outrage came after listening to Days, accused of operating a drug stash house and gun possession, give disturbing accounts of life inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and its sister institution, the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Brooklyn.

“The single thing in the five years that I was chief judge of this court that made me the craziest was my complete and utter inability to do anything meaningful about the conditions at the MCC, especially at the MCC and the MDC, two federal correctional facilities located in the City of New York that are run by morons, which wardens cycle (through) repeatedly, never staying for longer than a few months or even a year,” McMahon said at the April 29 sentencing.

“I wish that the Attorney General, whoever, head of the Bureau of Prisons and the leader of the Congress, would have heard that presentation,” McMahon said.

[Kendra]

Kind of OT, but I think the old Epstein thread was on the old board...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/alleged-epste ... Uc-yqgfF1U

An alleged victim of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew of Britain on Monday, accusing the embattled 61-year-old royal of sexually abusing her at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and elsewhere when she was under the age of 18, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre in federal court in New York, comes almost two years to the day that Epstein died in a New York jail while he was awaiting trial on conspiracy and child sex trafficking charges. The legal action also comes just days before the expiration date of a New York state law that permits alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil claims that might otherwise be barred by statutes of limitations.

“If she doesn't do it now, she would be allowing him to escape any accountability for his actions,” Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies, chairman of Boies, Schiller Flexner, told ABC News. “And Virginia is committed to trying to avoid situations where rich and powerful people escape any accountability for their actions.”

“Twenty years ago, Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account,” the lawsuit states.

[Maybenaut]

A federal judge makes clear in a new order that she's not budging from a Nov. 29th trial date start for accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

[raison de arizona]

Feds Must Disclose ‘Identities of Any Unnamed Co-Conspirators’ to Ghislaine Maxwell, Trial Judge Rules

Federal prosecutors must disclose the “identities of any unnamed co-conspirators” whose names they plan to refer to at trial to Ghislaine Maxwell, a federal judge ruled on Friday.

In a three-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan also ordered the government to “disclose all co-conspirator statements it intends to offer at trial no later than” Oct. 11.

“The government argues that there is no risk of surprise because ‘it currently intends’ to introduce the alleged co-conspirator statements of only two individuals,” the order states. “At the same time, however, the Government proffers that it ‘may change its view as it prepares for trial.’ […] The Court thus finds the Government’s reassurance hollow and insufficient to ensure that the Defendant may adequately prepare her defenses.”

Equally significant to Judge Nathan as the government’s stated justification was what prosecutors did not argue.

“Moreover, the Government has not alleged that disclosure here would create ‘potential danger to co-conspirators’ or risk ‘compromising continuing investigations,'” the judge wrote. “It merely argues that disclosing the identities risks ‘harm to the Government from restricting its proof at trial.'”

Judge Nathan was skeptical about this claim.

“The Government provides no explanation for this purported harm and none is apparent to the Court,” she wrote. “Thus, the Court finds that this concern alone does not outweigh the risk of surprise to the Defendant in this case or the need for the parties to litigate co-conspirator issues in advance of trial to ensure the absence of delay.”

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https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/fe ... dge-rules/
Full order: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... s-9321.pdf

[Kendra]

Just CONFIRMED on the court docket:

Prince Andrew was served with Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit late last month.

Background,
@LawCrimeNews
: https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/one-of- ... l-assault/

[Uninformed]

Lead story on the BBB News website. I assume the royal family will maintain their dignified silence.

“Prince Andrew served with papers, accuser's team claims”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58523119

ETA. BBC not BBB

[Kendra]

Lead story on the BBB News website. I assume the royal family will maintain their dignified silence.

“Prince Andrew served with papers, accuser's team claims”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58523119

Thanks for that.

According to court documents, an answer is due from Prince Andrew to the affidavit by 17 September and "if you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint".

Assuming they ignore it and the default judgment gets entered, what recourse then? Find US Property he owns and file liens like peons like my company does when we get a default judgment on a debtor? Does Prince Andrew actually have attachable property, or does it all belong to the Royal family or whatever?

[Dave from down under]

Most of Prince Andrew’s wealth is tied up in his multimillion-dollar properties, which include a $17 million chalet Helora in Swiss ski resort Verbier and a $10 million, 30-room residence in Windsor Park called the Royal Lodge. He shares this with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.

[Dave from down under]

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bbc ... 190212.amp

What happens if the duke loses?
Ms Giuffre's side would ask the court to order Prince Andrew to pay Ms Giuffre damages.
But he's not in the US - so how could that be enforced?
If Ms Giuffre won, her team could come to the UK and ask a High Court judge in London to rule, in a follow-on case, that the duke has to pay up.
But here's where it gets legally rather complex (if it wasn't already). If the prince didn't take part in the case in America, a London judge could reject the case as unenforceable. That would protect him from the damages - but it wouldn't affect the New York court's judgment against him.

[Kendra]

Thank you Dave. Tis a

[sugar magnolia]

Watched an interesting show about her the other night but all I can remember now is the fact that everyone they spoke to pronounced her name differently.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

G-Max.

[Uninformed]

The Queen's message to Prince Andrew, Duke of York KG, GCVO, CD, ADC

I send my congratulations to you on your success in avoiding the United States civil lawsuit. It is a remarkable achievement in the modern age, and is testament to hereditary privilege and inequality.  I have no doubt your outstanding stonewalling of your opponent Virginia Giuffre, will inspire the next generation of royal degenerates.  I send my warmest good wishes to you and your many supporters. 
ELIZABETH R.

[Uninformed]

[Volkonski]

[Uninformed]

“Prince Andrew case: High Court to notify duke of US civil proceedings”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58574350

“The Hague Service Convention, a treaty that governs requests between countries for evidence in civil or commercial matters, allows Ms Giuffre's legal team to ask the High Court in London to formally notify Prince Andrew about her civil action.
The High Court had initially rejected their request, citing an issue with the application, but later said: "The lawyers acting for Ms Giuffre have now provided further information to the High Court, and the High Court has accepted the request for service under the Hague Service Convention.
"The legal process has not yet been served but the High Court will now take steps to serve under the convention, unless service is arranged by agreement between the parties."
At the first pre-trial hearing in New York, on Monday, the prince's lawyer, Andrew Brettler, argued he had not been properly served under either UK or international law.”