Were Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell really in a romantic relationship?
Duo appeared to be romantic partners to the young girls who were lured into their orbit, but even those who knew the pair for decades seemed unsure of the true nature of their relationship
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A recurring motif from accusers in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking trial is the playful, intimate, almost adolescent nature of her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Two of the four women to testify have described how the pair would laugh and fool around with each other like doting teenagers, even though Ms Maxwell was well into her 30s at the time, and Epstein nearly a decade older.
Prosecutors have portrayed their intimate relationship as an essential part of Epstein’s and Ms Maxwell’s alleged predatory behaviour, as they supposedly partnered in luring young victims in to be sexually abused.
Ms Maxwell, 59, is charged with six counts of sex trafficking, enticement and abuse of a minor. She has strongly denied all of the charges.
Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 aged 66 while awaiting his own sex trafficking trial.
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The final accuser to take the stand, Annie Farmer, testified that when she flew to Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico in 1996 they were acting flirtatiously towards each other during a trip to the movies to see Primal Fear.
“Epstein and Maxwell were being very playful with each other, kind of grabbing each other” as they waited to go into the theatre, Ms Farmer said.
Ms Maxwell pulled down Epstein’s pants “a little bit” in front of her, said Ms Farmer.
“It seemed odd,” she said, alleging the touchy, feely contact was a precursor to sexualised massages and further abuse by Epstein and Ms Maxwell at his Santa Fe ranch.
Later, Ms Farmer’s mother Janice Swain testified Epstein had attempted to ease her concerns about the New Mexico trip by telling her “his wife Ghislaine” would be chaperoning girls at the ranch.
But Epstein and Ms Maxwell were not married, and exact details of their relationship were largely kept hidden even from those who knew and worked for them for decades.
A second accuser, who testified under the pseudonym Kate, said Ms Maxwell had described Epstein as her boyfriend when they met at her London townhouse in the early 1990s.
“She told me lots of amazing things about her boyfriend, she said that he was a philanthropist and that he liked to help young people and that at some point it would be really wonderful for me to meet him.”
Once Kate did meet Epstein, that friendly conversation took on a more explicitly sexual tone, as Ms Maxwell allegedly encouraged her to massage him and praised her for being a “good girl” for complying.
A third accuser, who testified under her first name Carolyn, told the court she had seen photographs of a pregnant Ms Maxwell.
“There was multiple pictures, nude photos,” Carolyn testified during cross examination from defence attorney Jeffrey Pagliuca.
Carolyn was shown a photo by Mr Pagliuca, which was not shared publicly in court, which the witness said was not the photo she was referring to. Another witness testified the photo was of another of Epstein’s girlfriends, Eva Andersson Dubin.
Larry Visoski, Epstein’s pilot from 1991 to 2019, was the first witness called by prosecutors and said his employer’s relationship with Ms Maxwell was “more personal than business”, adding: “I wouldn’t characterise it as romantic.”
Epstein’s other longterm pilot David Rodgers, called to testify in the trial’s second week, said: “Early on, they were romantically involved.”
Both pilots said Ms Maxwell was Epstein’s “Number 2”, and oversaw every aspect of running his households, including hiring staff, booking his private jet flights and approving their expense accounts.
Another former Epstein employee, Juan Alessi, described Ms Maxwell as “the girlfriend of Mr Epstein”.
Mr Alessi managed Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion during the 1990s and said Ms Maxwell enforced extremely strict standards on employees.
“She was the lady of the house,” he said.
Ms Maxwell gave employees a 58-page house manual on how to behave, dress and prepare the house for when Epstein was in town, the court heard.
Under a section titled “Grooming and guest relations”, they were told: “See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, except to answer a question directed to you.”
Photographs and sketches of Ms Maxwell on display around the Palm Beach property were shown to the jury.
Mr Alessi testified that he was ordered to remove all trace of Ms Maxwell when Epstein was hosting other female guests.
When the FBI conducted a raid on Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2019, they found a treasure trove of evidence linking him to Ms Maxwell on CDs and hard drives.
More than a dozen intimate photographs showed the pair kissing and embracing on yachts and private jets and at black tie events, and lounging outside a log cabin at the Queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland.
Another showed Ms Maxwell massaging Epstein’s feet while rubbing them against her cleavage on a private jet.
A separate document recovered from a hard drive at the Manhattan townhouse contained a letter that also seemed to show Ms Maxwell had wanted to keep up the appearance of them being a couple.
Created in 2002 by user “G Max”, the Word Document stated: “Jeffrey and Ghislaine have been together, a couple, for the last 11 years. They are, contrary to what people think, rarely apart. I always see them together.
“Ghislaine is highly intelligent and great company with a ready smile and an infectious laugh.”
The letter went on to say: “Jeffrey and Ghislaine compliment each other really well and I cannot imagine one without the other. On top of being great partners, they are also the best of friends.”
A defence attorney quizzed an FBI investigator who had cloned the hard drive about whether someone else other than Ms Maxwell could have authored the letter, but its purpose was never fully explained.
During the two weeks of evidence, prosecutors maintained that Ms Maxwell had a financial motive in ensuring Epstein’s sexual demands were satisfied.
She had not been a “particularly wealthy person” when she met Epstein in the early 1990s, they said during pre-trial arguments.
In her opening argument, Lara Pomerantz said Ms Maxwell had abused the victims as a “means to support her lifestyle”, and that Ms Maxwell had tried to keep him happy so that she “could stay in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed.”
After the 1991 death of her father, the late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell who defrauded his own businesses of millions of dollars, she needed a new benefactor, they said.
Mr Rodgers, the second pilot to testify, said after her father’s death, Ms Maxwell moved from her “very large residence” on 59th St on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to a small studio apartment on 84th St.
One of the accusers, Kate, also testified that Ms Maxwell told her Epstein had bought her a property in New York.
Prosecutors also called a JP Morgan executive who testified that Epstein had wired Ms Maxwell $30.7m between 1999 and 2007.
Bank records showed a purchase of a helicopter worth $7.35m by Ms Maxwell in June 2007 soon after she received a similar transfer from Epstein.
Ms Maxwell’s attorneys have tried to minimise her relationship with Epstein, and claimed she is being scapegoated for his crimes.
Her defence attorneys have said Epstein compartmentalised his life in such a way that even those closest to him had no idea what he was really like.
By the early 2000s, Ms Maxwell was in a “committed relationship” with Ted Waitt, a wealthy businessman who owned his own private planes and was CEO of Gateway Computers.