The jury for Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial has ended an abbreviated first week of deliberations without reaching a verdict. Maxwell is charged with recruiting girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.
Jurors met for less than an hour Monday after closing arguments and instructions consumed most of the day.
Maxwell, 59 until Saturday, was arrested in July 2020 and has remained behind bars without bail ever since. Prosecutors say she groomed girls as young as 14 to think it was acceptable and normal for them to engage in sexualized massages with Epstein, her onetime boyfriend and eventual close friend and employer, sometimes in return for $100 bills.
For two weeks, prosecutors aimed to prove through two dozen witnesses and exhibits that Maxwell was Epstein’s crucial enabler. Prosecutors say she sometimes joined in the abuse after recruiting girls with promises that Epstein’s wealth and powerful connections could fund and enable their dreams. Often, the girls came from financially strapped families living in desperate or strained circumstances, the government said.
Defense lawyers contend that Maxwell is being prosecuted as a scapegoat after sex trafficking charges brought against Epstein dissolved with his 2019 suicide in a Manhattan federal jail as he awaited trial.
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