Ghislaine Maxwell is trying to prevent Sarah Ransome, a British victim of pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, from testing against her at the heiress’ sentencing hearing next week.
Lawyers for Maxwell, 60, are trying to stop Ms Ransome from giving a victim impact statement to a Manhattan court on Tuesday when a judge will determine the length of Maxwell’s jail sentence for sex-trafficking, with the prosecution pushing for 20 years.
Maxwell’s legal team wrote a filing to the court saying that the alleged sexual abuse committed by Ms Ransome falls outside of the time period for offenses covered by the trial.
Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, was convicted on five out of six charges in December, including sex trafficking of a minor – the youngest victim a 14-year-old girl, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three related counts of conspiracy, and faces a maximum 65 years in jail.
Ms Ransome told The Telegraph during Maxwell’s trial: ‘She (Maxwell) looked at me and she walked over and she said, ”Jeffrey wants you.” And I completely froze…she grabbed my arm and marched me into Jeffrey’s room, where I was then raped.’
‘When I walked out of the room she smiled with these black eyes like a great white shark. She she enjoyed knowing what had happened to me.
Ransome (pictured outside the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in New York on Nov. 29, 2021 during Maxwell’s trial) was recruited into the sex trafficking ring in 2006 when she was 22 and now hopes to give a victim impact statement at Maxwell’s sentencing
This sketch shows the moment Maxwell was convicted of five of the six counts she faces in December 2021. She will be sentenced next week on June 28
An undated Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Queen’s log cabin at Glen Beg, Balmoral. Maxwell faces a maximum of 65 years in jail for her part in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, but the prosecution are pushing for only 20 years
The disgraced socialite has been held in solitary confinement in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan detention center since July 2020, where guards told her ‘there was concern she could be shot by a sniper’.
Ms Ransome is hoping to appear alongside another alleged Epstein victim, Elizabeth Stein, to address US District Judge Alison Nathan as she hands down the sentence for Maxwell’s five counts of sex trafficking women and young girls for Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
‘The conduct underlying the offenses charged against Ms Maxwell ended ‘in or about 2004’, Maxwell’s legal team wrote to the court on Tuesday.
‘To our understanding, Ms Ransome alleges that she was a victim of Epstein and Ms Maxwell from approximately October 2006 to April 2007, a full two years after the conduct in this case ended. She therefore does not qualify as a ‘crime victim’ under the CVRA (Crime Victims Rights Act).’
It is appealing to this technicality that Maxwell’s lawyers hope to exclude Ms Ransome’s testimony. Ms Stein’s alleged abuse occurred in 1994 and so her testimony is exempt from this defense.
Maxwell’s legal team wrote a filing to the court saying that the alleged sexual abuse committed by Ms Ransome at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell (left) falls outside of the time period for offenses covered by the trial
‘While it is appropriate for victims to be present pursuant to the CVRA, Ms Maxwell’s sentencing proceeding should not be an open forum for any alleged victim to be heard,’ the attorneys wrote.
Ms Ransome, 37, who was born in Johannesburg to British parents, alleges she was sexually abused by Epstein on his private Virgin Island in 2006 and that Maxwell was entirely complicit.
Her include not just being aware of the abuse, but that Maxwell actively brought her to Epstein to be raped.
Maxwell is scheduled to be sentenced next Tuesday, June 28, with the probation department recommending a 20-year sentence, below the sentencing guidelines of up to 65 years for the crimes the British heiress was convicted of.
Maxwell has requested a more lenient sentence of just four years and three months in jail, arguing that she is being scapegoated as a proxy for Epstein’s crimes, and that her philanthropic work demonstrated she has a ‘desire to do good in the world’.
A legal filings claimed that helping launch the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) demonstrated she has a ‘desire to do good in the world’.
A photo from 2002 on the Africa trip shows Clinton standing on the steps of Epstein’s plane with his arm on the shoulder of a smiling Maxwell. Clinton flew on Epstein’s jet dozens of times including trips to Africa and Asia after he left office
DailyMail.com has obtained a photograph of a signed copy of Bill Clinton’s memoir. The former President wrote ‘To Ghislaine with love’ in blue marker in the front cover of ‘My Life’, said Maxwell’s former dog walker Rasmus Alpsjö
The filing states: ‘Ms. Maxwell has always worked hard. Her many educational, occupational, and avocational accomplishments include becoming an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), a helicopter pilot, a submersible pilot, a banker; partnering with the Cleveland Clinic to establish a telemedicine platform to enable people in remote areas to obtain quality medical treatment; helping develop the Clinton Global Initiative; and supporting a variety non-profit and charitable organizations’.
In a later section the document states that Maxwell is not an ‘heiress, villain, or vapid socialite’.
The most recent known image of Ghislaine Maxwell, released by her lawyers in 2021. They’re now demanding she serves just four years behind bars for child sex abuse
The claim puts renewed spotlight on the links between Maxwell, Epstein and Clinton.
Epstein argued to have helped Clinton launch the CGI and the former President flew on his private jet – known as the ‘Lolita Express’ – dozens of times.
One photo taken as the jet was about to depart shows Maxwell standing with Clinton on the plane’s steps, the two smiling warmly.
The claim about Maxwell being targeted by a sniper was made during a section of the pre-sentencing filing which talked about Maxwell’s treatment in the MDC while awaiting trial.
The document states: ‘The treatment imposed on Ms. Maxwell was unnecessarily and intentionally degrading and threatening.
‘While in isolation, a high-ranking prison guard told Ms. Maxwell that there was concern that she would be shot by a sniper. Putting aside the reason and propriety of dispensing this alarming information, the diminution of security concerns resulting in her transfer to general population appears correlated to Ms. Maxwell having been sufficiently safeguarded to fill Epstein’s empty seat’.
Maxwell’s attorneys claim that she was recently threatened by an inmate in general, alleging that she said the extra 20 years in prison would be ‘worth the money’ if she killed Jeffrey Epstein’s lover.
Her attorneys also argue she is subject to multiple pat-downs a day where she alleges ‘to have been touched in a sexually inappropriate manner by correction officers’ several times.