Culture

Junk Explained: Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell, And What Is Her Connection To Jeffrey Epstein?

The wealthy socialite was just arrested by the FBI.

by Joseph Earp  3 July 2020
Ghislaine Maxwell

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Overnight, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime friend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested and charged with conspiracy, perjury, and alleged sex crimes.

This story contains discussion of sexual assault and abuse

Anyone who has followed Epstein’s case will know Maxwell. For years, she has been accused of providing Epstein with his victims, and facilitating his pattern of abuse.

At a press conference, the prosecutor of Maxwell’s case said she had played “a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse,” adding that, “in some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse.”

But who is Maxwell, what is her precise connection with Epstein, and why are people already suggesting that Maxwell may be silenced?

Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell?

Maxwell is the heir to a vast and wealthy media conglomerate — her father, Robert Maxwell was a media tycoon, and she grew up in a 53-room large mansion. In the media, Maxwell’s relationship with her father has been depicted as controlling, with The Times claiming she was not allowed to bring home boys till late in her teenage years.

Throughout her young adulthood, Maxwell established herself as a socialite, establishing clubs for other rich women, and spending much of her time on her father’s giant yacht. By the early ’90s, she was someone to know — which is when she crossed paths with Jeffrey Epstein.

Who Was Jeffrey Epstein?

Jeffrey Epstein was a multi-millionaire with a lot rich friends. He had connections to every kind of upper-class circle, from the world of politics, to royalty, to entertainment.

There are photographs of the man smiling aside Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew. After his death, Epstein’s documents revealed that he frequently hung out with everybody from creator of The Simpsons Matt Groening to Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates.

Epstein was also a pedophile. That is a matter of public record — in 2005, he was charged with soliciting sex from two minors. In fact, although the charge only named two victims, in 2015, it was revealed that there were at least 36 alleged victims of Epstein at that time.

By 2019, Epstein was arrested once again, this time for operating a sex trafficking ring. He was arrested, and called before the court. But before his trial could begin, Epstein hung himself in a jail cell.

What Was Maxwell’s Association With Epstein’s Crimes?

Maxwell and Epstein briefly dated, although the exact nature of their relationship has been much contested. Epstein variously referred to Maxwell as his girlfriend, his assistant, and his right-hand man. She lived with him for years, controlling his support staff, and maintaining his home.

Along with Epstein, Maxwell was also a close friend of Prince Andrew, the royal who infamously claimed that he “doesn’t sweat” as a convoluted way of denying his connection to Epstein.

Throughout Maxwell’s friendship with Epstein, she was also accused of soliciting victims for her powerful friend. In a court document made public in 2015, a young, anonymous victim claimed that Maxwell “[recruited] her in 1999, when she was a minor, and [groomed] her to provide sexual services for Epstein.”

Two years later, another victim of Epstein’s, Sarah Ransome, claimed that Maxwell had played a major part in her abuse, coercing Ransome into giving Epstein an erotic massage and threatening to destroy her career if she did not agree.

Throughout the next two years, even more allegations began to pile up. Maria Farmer claimed that her sister, Annie Farmer, had been abused by both Epstein and Maxwell; an anonymous woman named Priscilla Doe stated that Maxwell had provided her with detailed instructions on how to sexually satisfy Epstein; and another anonymous victim alleged that she had been recruited by Maxwell when she was 13.

Over the course of this period, Maxwell became famously elusive and hard to find. On numerous occasions, the prosecution was forced to hire private investigators in an attempt to locate her physical address, and her own lawyers claimed they had no way of tracking her down to deliver court documents.

On July 2, 2020, after years of searching, Maxwell was found by the FBI and promptly arrested.

Why Are People Suggesting Ghislaine Maxwell May Be Silenced?

Almost as soon as Maxwell was arrested, it was suggested on Twitter that she may be in some way “silenced”, stopped from providing testimony about her rich and powerful friends.

The reason for such theories? The death of Epstein. Epstein’s passing was officially ruled as a “suicide”, but the man was alone in his jail cell when he died. That’s even after evidence suggests that Epstein already attempted suicide once before his death.

On July 25 2019, the billionaire was found on the floor of his jail cell with marks around his neck. He claims to have no memory of what happened. His inmate, a former police officer, claims not to have known either. There exists no video footage of this attempt. The footage is meant to be packed up to a jail server, but apparently a “technical error” stopped this from happening.

After that attempt, Epstein was moved into a higher-security cell. Or at least, what authorities claimed was a higher-security cell. The millionaire was supposed to be in there with a cellmate. Prison guards were meant to check on him every 30 minutes.

In fact, neither of these things happened. The cellmate was moved out on August 9, the day before Epstein’s death. The night of his suicide, no guards checked on him. The two guards posted fell asleep for eight hours and browsed on the internet. Later, they allegedly falsified records concerning what they got up to that night — a crime for which they are being called before the courts.

How Does This Reflect On Trump?

Ever since Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested, vocal critics of US President Donald Trump have repeatedly stressed that Trump was known to both Epstein and Maxwell. There’s even a photograph of the three of them together:

As to whether Trump will actually be “scared” by such a connection, it remains unclear — he seemed largely untroubled when connected to Epstein throughout that man’s arrest.

But certainly, at the very least, Maxwell’s arrest has gone some way to exposing the corruption and power that lies at the heart of American “high society”. The rich should be scared of something like that.

Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee. He tweets @Joseph_O_Earp.

Lead image credit: Wikimedia Commons