Maxwell, Epstein were ‘partners in crime,’ according to prosecutor

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were “partners in crime” in the sexual abuse of teenage girls, a prosecutor said Monday in opening statements, with the defence countering that like so many women before her, Maxwell was being made a scapegoat for a man’s bad behaviour.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said at the start of Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial that the British socialite and Epstein enticed girls as young as 14 to engage in “socalled massages” in which sex abuse came to be seen as “casual and normal” after they were showered with money and gifts.

The prosecutor sought to make clear to a jury of 12 that there was no confusion about whether Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime companion, was his puppet or accomplice.

She described Maxwell, 59, as central to Epstein’s sex abuse scheme, which prosecutors say lasted over a decade. “She was in on it from the start. The defendant and Epstein lured their victims with a promise of a bright future, only to sexually exploit them,” Pomerantz said.

Maxwell “was involved in every detail of Epstein’s life,” the prosecutor said. “The defendant was the lady of the house.”

Even after Maxwell and Epstein stopped being romantically involved, the pair “remained the best of friends,” Pomerantz said.

She said Maxwell “helped normalize abusive sexual conduct” by making the teenagers feel safe and by taking them on shopping trips and asking them about their lives, their schools and their families.

The prosecutor spoke from an enclosed plastic see-through box that allowed her to take off her mask as Maxwell, in a cream-coloured sweater and black pants, at times wrote and passed notes to her lawyers.

When she finished, attorney Bobbi Sternheim said her client was a “scapegoat for a man who behaved badly.” Maxwell, she said, was being blamed for a man’s bad behaviour just as so many women have before, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

“She’s not Jeffrey Epstein. She’s not like Jeffrey Epstein” or any of the powerful men, moguls and media giants who abuse women, Sternheim said.