On Wednesday, Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty on five of six counts
The Associated Press reports:
The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
The verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico.
Jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty of five of six counts. As the verdict was read, Maxwell appeared to show little reaction behind a black mask. She stood with her hands folded as the jury filed out, and glanced at her siblings as she herself was led from the courtroom, but was otherwise stoic.
She faces the likelihood of years in prison — an outcome long sought by women who spent years fighting in civil courts to hold Maxwell accountable for her role in recruiting and grooming Epstein’s teenage victims and sometimes joining in the sexual abuse.
According to the AP report, prosecutors called 24 witnesses to give jurors a picture of life inside Epstein’s homes — a subject of public fascination and speculation ever since his 2006 arrest in Florida in a child sex case.
Epstein the pedophile sexually abused young girls across the globe, including in New Mexico at “Zorro Ranch” right outside of Santa Fe, the state’s capital city. Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was in Epstein’s “little black book.”
“Maxwell faced six counts — a conspiracy charge (for agreeing to do the crime) paired with a substantive charge (for committing the crime) for each of the following: enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and sex trafficking a minor,” according to the Rolling Stone.
She was not found guilty on the charge of “enticement of an individual under the age of 17 to travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.”