A federal judge sentenced Ghislaine Maxwell today in Manhattan federal court to 240 months in prison for her involvement in a decade-long plot to sexually exploit and torture many teenage girls with Jeffrey Epstein, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement. Previously, on December 29, 2021, a jury found MAXWELL guilty of conspiracy to lure minors to travel for illegal sex acts, and also of conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, as well as of conspiracy to traffic in persons under the age of 18 for sexual purposes.

Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for her atrocious crimes against children, according to US Attorney Damian Williams. The message conveyed by this phrase is that no one is above the law and that justice may be served at any time. For the second time, we thank the victims of Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes for their fortitude to come forward and testify at trial, and for sharing their tales with us as part of today’s sentence.” Accusations made in the Indictment, court papers, and evidence produced at the trial all point to the following:

By assisting Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom, and eventually abuse victims who were under the age of 18, GHISLAINE MAXWELL helped, enabled, and engaged in the abuse of juvenile females from at least 1994 until at least 2004. MAXWELL and Epstein, both of whom knew their victims were kids, groomed and molested them while they were as young as 14 years old. MAXWELL and Epstein recruited and induced underage victims to go to Epstein’s homes in several states as part of their strategy to abuse them sexually, which MAXWELL knew and intended would lead to their grooming and submission to sexual assault.

Minor girls were lured and groomed by MAXWELL to be mistreated in a variety of ways. MAXWELL, for example, tried to become friends with some of the victims by asking them about their daily lives, their schools, and their families, and by bringing them to the movies or shopping. As a result of MAXWELL’s presence during victim contact with Epstein, victims felt more at ease with Epstein since an adult lady seemed to approve of his behavior. For those who needed it, Epstein offered to pay for travel and/or school expenses, and MAXWELL urged them to accept his offer. A consequence of this was that the victims were made to feel as if they owed MAXWELL and Epstein an obligation of gratitude. MAXWELL also normalized and encouraged sexual abuse for a victim by talking about sexual issues, undressing in front of the victim, being there when the victim was undressed, and encouraging the victim to massage Epstein.

It was MAXWELL’s and Epstein’s intention that these grooming activities would expose underage victims to Epstein’s sexual assault. It was then that MAXWELL was present for several sexual contacts between child victims and Epstein, such as when a minor victim was undressed and eventually was there for Epstein’s sexual acts done on minor victims. A child victim was subjected to sexually explicit massages as Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein, and others performed group sexualized massages on them. Ghislaine Maxwell was a party to the sexual abuse of minors in several cases.

As a result, minor victims were subjected to sexual abuse that included touching a victim’s breast or genital, placing a sex toy on the victim’s private parts, directing the victim to touch Epstein while Epstein masturbated, and encouraging the victim to touch Epstein’s genitals while he was masturbating. All of the victims of MAXWELL and Epstein’s abuse were either groomed or abused in Epstein’s homes in Florida, New Mexico, and London, England.

Between 1994 and 2001, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein were able to identify vulnerable girls, often from single-mother families and households with little resources. The defendant and Epstein had to select one girl at a time to abuse and groom in this earlier phase. At some point between 2001 and 2004, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein lured and recruited young females to attend Epstein’s Palm Beach home for sex acts, after which Epstein, MAXWELL, or another one of his employees would pay the victims hundreds of dollars in cash. This was done between 2001 and 2004. It is possible that Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein urged one or more of the victims to go with Epstein for the victim to participate in sexual actions with Epstein. Furthermore, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein paid some of Epstein’s victims to find new victims for him, so that he could maintain and grow his victim pool. As a result of their collaboration, MAXWELL and Epstein were able to assemble a pool of vulnerable minors that Epstein could take advantage of.

Besides the five years in jail, Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, was sentenced to supervised release and required to pay a $750,000 fine.

Mr. Williams lauded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s excellent job.

The public Corruption Unit is in charge of this investigation. For the prosecution, we have Maurene Comey, Alison M., L., Pomerantz, and Andrew R. Rohrbach.