Ghislaine Maxwell said in a 2016 deposition that a woman’s account of engaging in sexual activity with Prince Andrew inside a bathtub in her home couldn’t be true because “the tub is too small,” according to a transcript released Thursday. Maxwell dodged questions about whether Prince Andrew ever had sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, but insisted that it never happened inside her London home, NBC News reported. In previous interviews with NBC News and other outlets, Giuffre has said she engaged in sexual activity with Prince Andrew at Maxwell’s home that started in the bathroom and transitioned to a bedroom. Representatives for Andrew declined to comment, but he has previously denied the allegations and said he has no recollection of ever meeting Giuffre.
Federal prosecutors say that guards at the MDC facility in Brooklyn check in on Ghislaine Maxwell every 15 minutes at night by shining a flashlight against the roof of her cell to make sure she is breathing, conduct a body scan once a week to make sure she has no contraband, and conduct two pat-down searches of her each day when she is moved from her isolation cell in the morning and back to her cell at night, court filings say.
The filing comes in response to recent defense filings questioning Maxwell’s conditions at the jail facility. Specifically, her attorneys requested that Maxwell receive greater access to discovery and be allowed to speak with her attorneys for a longer period of time.
Federal authorities arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, in July of last year in connection with the late, accused sex trafficker.
Maxwell was charged on six counts for acts committed between 1994 and 1997 and then allegedly lying to investigators in 2016. Four counts are related to allegedly helping transport minors for sexual activity and two for perjury, according to the criminal complaint.
Prosecutors say Maxwell, “has as much, if not more, time as any other MDC inmate to communicate with her attorneys” through video tele-conference calls after a rise in COVID-19 cases led to the suspension of in-person visits at the facility since December.
“In particular, the defendant has VTC calls with her counsel every weekday for three hours per call”, prosecutors write saying , “all of these VTCs and telephone calls take place in a room where the defendant is alone and where no MDC staff can hear her communications with counsel.” They also say Maxwell “continues to receive more time to review discovery than any other inmate at the MDC” adding that she has access to a laptop computer 13 hours a day 7 days a week and she can send and receive emails with her attorneys.
Multiple young women have accused Maxwell, 58, the youngest daughter of the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, of complicity in Epstein's alleged sex trafficking ring. They say she either recruited them directly or provided logistical support, like scheduling visits to Epstein's home.
The abuse allegedly happened at Palm Beach, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and at Epstein's home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, officials said Thursday.
Earlier this week NBC News reported that the fund set up to compensate women who were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein is suspending payouts because of uncertainty around its cash flow.
The Epstein Victims Compensation Fund has received more than 150 claims and paid out more than $50 million. But administrator Jordana Feldman said she was forced to pause the program after Epstein's estate informed her Wednesday that it did not have sufficient funds to satisfy the most recent request for replenishment and that it could not predict when the money would become available.
