By John Friend
Ghislaine Maxwell, a close associate and former girlfriend of the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested by federal authorities on the morning of July 2 at her mansion in Bradford, N.H. Maxwell, the youngest daughter of the Mossad-connected British media and financial tycoon Robert Maxwell, has been charged with multiple federal crimes relating to enticing and transporting minors for criminal sexual exploitation as well as perjury, which she and the late Epstein have long been accused of.
Maxwell has kept a low profile since the mysterious alleged suicide of Epstein, who was arrested in July 2019 on charges relating to sexual exploitation and trafficking of minors. Epstein purportedly committed suicide while in federal custody as he awaited trial last summer. The extremely dubious suicide of Epstein has led many independent investigators and observers to speculate that the highly connected Epstein was either murdered in order to prevent him from exposing the truth about his alleged sexual blackmail and exploitation operation, or that he was perhaps allowed to escape. Epstein has long been believed to be tied in with and protected by various intelligence agencies, including Israel’s Mossad.
Maxwell was a close confidant and lover of Epstein, and often accompanied him on trips around the world. It has been alleged for decades that she served as a recruiter and groomer of underage girls to be sexually exploited by Epstein and other top political and financial elites, including Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom, Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Richardson, George Mitchell, and President Donald Trump, among many others. Epstein’s fabulous wealth and close associations with some of the world’s leading individuals led many to speculate he was running an espionage and sexual blackmail operation designed to entrap and control top political figures.
According to the federal indictment, Maxwell is being charged with enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts as well as conspiracy to commit the same crimes.
“From at least 1994 through at least 1997,” the indictment reads, Maxwell “assisted, facilitated, and participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18.”
Federal prosecutors allege that the victims exploited by Maxwell and Epstein were as young as 14 years old, and that Maxwell “attempted to befriend certain victims by asking them about their lives, taking them to the movies or taking them on shopping trips, and encouraging their interactions with Epstein,” the indictment alleges. The illegal sexual acts were performed at Epstein’s private homes in New York, Florida, and New Mexico, his private island and at Maxwell’s residence in London.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss, who assumed the role following Geoffrey Berman’s recent termination by President Trump following pressure from U.S. Attorney General William Barr, argued that Maxwell “facilitated, aided, and participated in acts of sexual abuse of minors” following the unsealing of the federal indictment.
“Maxwell enticed minor girls, got them to trust her, and then delivered them into the trap that she and Jeffrey Epstein had set,” Strauss stated. “She pretended to be a woman they could trust. All the while, she was setting them up to be abused sexually by Epstein and, in some cases, Maxwell herself. Today, after many years, Ghislaine Maxwell finally stands charged for her role in these crimes.”
Attorneys representing alleged victims of Epstein praised Maxwell’s arrest, and hope to finally see justice meted out in what has become one of the longest-running scandals in American history.
Hopefully Maxwell will be “the first of many co-conspirators to face the consequences of [these] horrific crimes,” attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represents some of the women who have come forth with accusations against Epstein and Maxwell, said following the release of the federal indictment.
John Friend is a freelance writer based in California.
Could have been a Mossad operation from the start???