Ghislaine Maxwell
Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell ( ; born 25 December 1961) is a British former socialite and convicted sex offender. She is known as a former associate of Jeffrey Epstein. In December 2021, she was convicted of sex trafficking of a minor and conspiracy and, in June 2022, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Early life
Maxwell was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, Ile-de-France. She is the youngest child of a French mother (Elisabeth Maxwell) and Czech-born British publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell. She grew up in Oxford, England. She has triple citizenship: American, British and French. She was a popular socialite in London in the 1980s.
Career
She moved to the United States after her father drowned in 1991, where she continued as a socialite.
Maxwell founded the ocean-advocacy group The TerraMar Project in 2012. The organization announced it was closing on 12 July 2019, a week after the sex trafficking charges brought by New York federal prosecutors against Epstein became public.
Epstein relationship
During the 1990s, Maxwell had a relationship with businessman and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. After the relationship ended, they continued their association as friends. Maxwell faced allegations of sexually trafficking underage girls for Epstein and others, charges she denied.
Sex trafficking trial and conviction
On 27 December 2019, Reuters reported that Maxwell was among those under FBI investigation for helping Epstein. Since Epstein's arrest, Maxwell has been in hiding, communicating with the courts only through her lawyers.
On 12 March 2020, she filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in the U.S. Virgin Islands against Epstein's estate seeking compensation for her legal fees.
On 2 July 2020, Maxwell was arrested by the FBI in Bradford, New Hampshire.
In 2021, she was the defendant in a trial in the lower federal court system; On December 29, she was convicted on five counts related to the sex trafficking of a child and conspiracy.
In July 2022, she appealed the verdict.
She is in jail (as of 2023).
References
Other websites
1961 births
Living people
American sex offenders
British businesspeople
British philanthropists
British sex offenders
English criminals
French criminals
Jeffrey Epstein
People from Ile-de-France
People from Oxford
Socialites