Crime & Justice

New Underage Victim Accuses Ghislaine Maxwell of Abuse

JANE DOE

The British socialite allegedly sent the teenager gifts of lingerie and groomed her for Epstein’s abuse.

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Frazer Harrison

Ghislaine Maxwell, accused accomplice to sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is facing more allegations of grooming underage girls for the pedophile.

In a superseding indictment filed Monday, Manhattan federal prosecutors added a fourth unidentified minor victim to their case—and two new sex-trafficking charges against Maxwell. The complaint says the girl was 14 when the British socialite allegedly began grooming her for Epstein, who abused her from 2001 to 2004.

In a letter to Judge Alison Nathan, federal prosecutors said a Manhattan grand jury returned the superseding indictment on Monday.

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“At this juncture, while the Government’s investigation is still ongoing, if trial remains set for July 12, 2021 as scheduled, then the Government does not intend to seek any further indictments in this case,” the assistant U.S. attorneys wrote.

According to the indictment, Maxwell met the girl, referred to as “Minor Victim-4,” at Epstein’s Palm Beach home when she was 14 and “subsequently interacted” with her knowing she was underage at the time.

Prosecutors say Maxwell asked the girl about her family and her life, as she did with the other victims mentioned in the complaint, and “sought to normalize inappropriate and abusive conduct” by discussing sexual topics in front of her and being present when the girl was naked in Epstein’s massage room.

Maxwell “encouraged and enticed one or more minor victims to engage in paid sex acts with Epstein” from 2001 to 2004, the document states.

The 59-year-old heiress would allegedly call the girl, at times from New York, to book appointments for her to “massage” Epstein in Florida.

The indictment says that after these encounters, Epstein’s employees including Maxwell would allegedly pay the girl hundreds of dollars in cash.

Both Epstein and Maxwell, court papers allege, invited Minor Victim-4 to travel with Epstein and offered to help her obtain a passport. The girl declined their invitations.

Maxwell and other employees also allegedly sent the teenager “gifts, including lingerie, from an address in Manhattan, New York” to her home in Florida. One of those gifts was sent via FedEx in 2002, according to the indictment.

Epstein and Maxwell encouraged the girl to recruit other victims, the indictment says, and she brought multiple underage “masseuses” to the Palm Beach residence. She was paid hundreds of dollars in cash to recruit for Epstein, prosecutors say.

The initial indictment against Maxwell, who was arrested in July 2020, charged her with grooming and abusing three victims from 1994 to 1997.

Maxwell, a former girlfriend and employee of Epstein, has denied the accusations against her, and her family has embarked on a public-relations campaign to fight for her release from a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.

Her trial for sex-trafficking charges is scheduled for July.

The feds charged Maxwell about a year after they cuffed Epstein at a New Jersey airport in 2019. The 66-year-old sex offender—who’d secured a lenient plea deal in 2008 for molesting girls in Florida—killed himself in a Manhattan lockup soon after.

Other victims in Maxwell’s case include “Minor Victim-1” who was allegedly abused by both Epstein and Maxwell from 1994 through 1997, starting when she was 14, and Annie Farmer, who came forward as Minor Victim-2. Farmer said Maxwell groped her during an “unsolicited massage” at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch in 1996.

Maxwell is also accused of grooming a third girl, Minor Victim-3, for Epstein from 1994 to 1995 after meeting her in London.