The Hard Drives Vanish - Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Day 6
“All of the items in this photo which were previously here were gone.”
In one of the most dramatic pieces of testimony so far in the USA vs. Ghislaine Maxwell trial, Special Agent Kelly Maguire of the Federal Bureau of Investigation detailed what she and her team found the night of July 6th-7th, 2019, when they searched the deceased sex trafficker’s Upper East Side townhouse.
In a closet on the 5th floor of the house, the FBI found thick black binders full of labeled CDs. There were also printed pieces of paper in clear pages in the binder, with labels which corresponded to those on the CDs. And there were thumbnails printed on the paper, presumably previewing the contents of the CD their labels corresponded to. There was also a cabinet under a white bookshelf in that fifth floor room, filled with deep clear plastic bins. These plastic bins “were found with evidence tape” on them testified Maguire. But, she said, “we did not apply them.”
The binders on the shelf of the fifth floor were found with white labels on them. In the exhibits of the binders shown over closed circuit television screens to the public at the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in downtown Manhattan, these white labels were redacted. The reason, said the government was that the labels contained “identifying information for third parties.” This likely refers to names.
In the picture of the shelf the government showed, two of the binders had their spines completely redacted. The rest were redacted at the top and the bottom of their spines.
In a third floor dressing room, FBI investigators pulled a large safe from a closet which they then pried open. In it, they found more blue plastic binders with CDs, loose diamonds, passports, and large amounts of US currency.
But the first night they searched the house, they didn’t have the legal authority to seize all of what they found in the safe. Then, when they came back with a search warrant with broader authority, the items disappeared.
“All of the items in this photo,” testified Maguire, referring to government exhibit 929 displayed on the screen of the observation room, “which were previously here, were gone.”
After talking to the house manager, Maguire got on a three way phone call with an associate of Jeffrey Epstein’s called Richard Kahn, and his attorney. According to Maguire, Kahn then brought the items which had been taken from the room back to her in two suitcases.
“It appeared to be all the items,” Maguire said.
The last witness of the night only testified for about ten minutes. Kimberly Meder, an FBI analyst in the child exploitation and human trafficking squad, began speaking to the court for around ten minutes about her time in the summer of 2020 reviewing the evidence seized by the FBI in their searches.
Before the proceedings ended for the night, the government entered exhibit 1101, a chart that Meder helped put together showing all the exhibit numbers associated with her review of the evidence. At the initial review, she reviewed every picture on the CDs in the FBI computer lab. And she collated the names written on the disk with FBI classification numbers of evidence to the chart.
Right before the court’s proceedings ended, the government entered exhibit 304 into the record. Meder said that the exhibit was a photo from one of the CDs she’d reviewed.
The government then asked her if, while reviewing this evidence, she had familiarized herself with the appearance of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. “Yes, she said. Then, right before the Judge ended the court’s proceedings, she was asked who appeared in the photo.
“Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.”