A Short Defense - Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Week 3

It was a slow, probing, confused day for the defense, the first day of their arguments against charges their client, Ghislaine Maxwell, engaged in a conspiracy to traffic, intice, and coerce underage girls into illegal sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein, the late billionaire who was accused of sexual abuse against scores of underage girls..

By the end of the day the government predicted they would finish calling witnesses tomorrow, or Monday morning at the latest.  That means closing arguments are likely to be done by the end of the day Monday.

There was no good news for the defense in the morning.  They had hoped to call three of the accusers’ lawyers to the stand - Jack Scarola, Bradley Edwards, and Robert Glassman.  This was in service to an argument that the women these men represented had only cooperated with the government’s case against Ghislaine Maxwell in order to improve their chances of getting a payout from the Epstein Victim Compensation Fund, an instrument set up by Epstein’s estate after his death.  Their clients all received large settlements from the fund in exchange for a legal promise not to sue any of Epstein’s employees, including Ghislaine Maxwell.

But the judge wouldn’t allow the Defense to ask Edwards or Scarola anything, citing a lack of relevance to the case.  They were allowed to ask Glassman just one narrow question, about whether or not he had communicated to his client Carolyn, who testified last Tuesday, that cooperating with the government would help her claim with the compensation fund.  But later in the day, Glassman was also withdrawn, shaving off still more witnesses from an already thin defense case by Maxwell’s lawyers.

When Maxwell came into the courtroom around 8:50 in the morning, she hugged her attorney Bobbi Sterheim for a long time - holding on for dear life.  With court out of session since last Friday, it was clearly the first human contact she’d had for awhile.  She was wearing a purple hued turtleneck sweater with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows.  A former assistant of Maxwell’s, Cimberly Espinosa, pointed Maxwell out to the room by identifying the color of her sweater during her testimony.

There was more disappointment for the defense before the jury even came in - they told the government that one of their witnesses, Alexander Hamilton, was sick with Covid.  That means he can’t get on a plane anytime soon, let alone into the country.  Hamilton is currently in the UK.  The government agreed to hear testimony from him over video link provided they got a positive Covid test.  

The defense wants to call Hamilton because he allegedly had a conversation with Kate, the British woman who testified for the prosecution that she met Maxwell when she was just 17.  Kate supposedly told Hamilton that something to the effect that she couldn’t believe how lucky she was Epstein had fallen into her lap.  Bobbi Sternheim said this proved her attitude to Epstein was more of somebody happy to get a windfall, than a victim.

One of Maxwell’s lawyers, Christian Everdell, also tried to undermine Kate’s testimony by calling into question when exactly Maxwell owned her London townhouse.  He wanted to bring into evidence a property transfer certificate showing that the property had been transferred to Maxwell’s ownership in March of 1997. 

Kate testified that abuse took place in the house in ‘94 or ‘95, argued Everdell - but Maxwell didn’t own it then.  Records show that it was owned by a couple called the O’Neills at the time.  It wasn’t until December 1996, Everdell continued, that O’Neill and Maxwell entered into a contract on the property.

Judge Nathan pointed out that Maxwell had testified in a previous deposition that she had lived there before that time.  

“Your evidence goes to when she owned it,” Nathan said, not when Maxwell lived in it, 

Everdell stumbled over his tongue for a few seconds before repeating again that the records showed the O’Neills owned the property at the time Kate says the abuse took place.

“The relevant question,” Nathan said again, “is residence.” 

After giving up this line of attack, Everdell went to god discuss something with Kevin Maxwell, Ghislaine’s older brother.  Kevin was sitting at his familiar spot on the bench in the first row of the courtroom next to his familiar companions: his sister Isabelle, and family PR flack Lea Saffian.  After a brief consultation with Kevin, Everdell came away to say of a witness “I’m told he can't testify until Monday.”

The feeling in the courtroom was that the defense was grasping at straws, just barely putting on a show for the sake of their client.  Nobody they brought forward all day made an impression.

Espinosa testified that she enjoyed her time working for Maxwell between 1996 and 2002, and that she admired Maxwell.  She credited Maxwell with teaching her the skills she used every day in her current job as an Executive Assistant to a “global CEO.”  She also said she’d stayed in Maxwell’s home three years ago when she’d visited Europe for the first time.  For her, Maxwell was a hard worker who was kept busy managing Epstein’s global portfolio of properties, occupied with everything from flying sand and palm trees into Little Saint James, to managing the interior decorating of his New York townhouse.

“She was the estate manager in my mind,” Espinosa testified.  The implication was she’d have no time to run a sex trafficking ring for Epstein.  They had a long list of 25-50 things to do every day already.