Ghislaine Maxwell victims describe shame, empowerment at sentencing hearing

Victims of Ghislaine Maxwell confronted the British socialite at her sentencing hearing on Tuesday about her role in helping sex offender and globetrotting financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse them, urging a judge to hold her accountable.

Victims of Ghislaine Maxwell confronted the British socialite at her sentencing hearing on Tuesday about her role in helping sex offender and globetrotting financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse them, urging a judge to hold her accountable. U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan said sentencing guidelines call for Maxwell, 60, to spend between 15 and 20 years in prison for recruiting and grooming girls to have sexual encounters with Epstein, then her boyfriend, between 1994 and 2004. Nathan is not bound by the guidelines, but must consider them.

In often emotional and explicit testimony during the trial, Annie Farmer, a woman known as "Kate," and two other women testified that Maxwell, who was found guilty on five counts, was a central figure in their abuse by Epstein. In the Tuesday hearing in Manhattan federal court, Farmer, now a psychologist, said her experience being exploited by Maxwell "resulted in significant shame" that sometimes left her feeling like she wanted to "disappear."

Kate said she was proud to help hold Maxwell accountable. "Today, I can look at Ghislaine and tell her that I became what I am today in spite of her and her efforts to make me feel powerless and insignificant, and I will cast that empowerment on my daughter," Kate said.

Maxwell's monthlong trial in late 2021 was widely seen as the reckoning that Epstein - who killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting his own sex trafficking trial - never had. It was one of the highest-profile cases in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to speak out about sexual abuse, often at the hands of wealthy and powerful people.

In calculating the guidelines range of 188-235 months, Nathan agreed with prosecutors that two women who were not initially named in the July 2020 indictment against Maxwell were proved at the British socialite's monthlong trial to have been victims. But she decided that the federal guidelines recommended a much shorter sentence than the 30-years-to-life calculated by prosecutors.

Maxwell's lawyers say she should be sentenced to no more than 5-1/4 years, arguing that she is being scapegoated for Epstein's crimes and had already spent significant time in jail. At the hearing, prosecutor Alison Moe urged Nathan to impose something above guidelines and sentence Maxwell to multiple decades in prison, arguing that Maxwell has shown "absolutely no remorse" and that Maxwell and Epstein were "partners in crime."

"These kids had hopes and dreams for their future, and the defendant used those dreams as her tool to abuse them," Moe said. "Those choices were hers and they have to have serious consequences." Nathan will determine the sentence at the end of the hearing.

 

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