Ghislaine Maxwell, the accused accomplice of wealthy sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, claims she was forced to shut down her dubious oceans charity because of “cancel culture,” according to a new website from her family.
As the British socialite fights new federal sex-trafficking charges, and the government’s claims that she refuses to clean her Brooklyn jail cell or flush her toilet, her siblings are publicizing RealGhislaine.com as part of their drive to paint her as a wrongfully-accused criminal justice advocate who is languishing behind bars.
“Ghislaine is extremely grateful for the hundreds of beautiful and supportive letters from strangers some of whom write her on a daily basis,” the website claims under the section “About Ghislaine.” “Her spirit is strong and she remains undaunted.”
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The bio adds: “In the late summer of 2019, when the case against Jeffrey Epstein was public, with enormous regret, Ghislaine decided to close TerraMar to protect supporters and corporate partners from the cancel culture and public opprobrium.”
Maxwell had used her oceans nonprofit, the TerraMar Project, to reinvent herself in recent years as an environmental activist and to distance herself from Epstein.
The 59-year-old heiress is accused of grooming, sexually abusing, and trafficking underage girls for Epstein in the mid-90’s and early 2000’s. (Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor in Florida in 2008, after securing a shady plea deal with the Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office. At the time, the feds were preparing a 53-count federal indictment against him.)
A former girlfriend, confidante and employee of Epstein, Maxwell had been lying low around the time of his July 2019 indictment in New York and his death one month later. The FBI arrested Maxwell at a New Hampshire mansion patrolled by private security last summer, after tracking her down using cellphone data.
Since her indictment, Maxwell has thrice asked for bail but a Manhattan federal judge denied her requests, saying her wealth and global connections made her a significant flight risk and that she was not forthcoming about her finances.
Her family has desperately tried to get her out of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and embarked on a public relations campaign to support her.
They initially created the Twitter handle @GMaxFacts, which was changed to @RealGhislaine on Friday to match the new website.
On Friday morning, Maxwell’s team issued a press release declaring: “Ghislaine Maxwell’s Family Launches Website as She Endures Over 280 days of Pre-Trial ‘Torture.”
The announcement added, “RealGhislaine.com will be updated frequently with exclusive content, news, commentary and useful resources to help visitors form a more balanced view about the real Ghislaine Maxwell.”
This website says it has been “developed and is maintained by brothers, sisters, family & friends of Ghislaine Maxwell, the people who have known the real Ghislaine all her life, not the fictional one-dimensional character created by the media.”
“What books is Ghislaine reading in prison?” one question in a section titled “FAQs” states, before listing reading materials including The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck, The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson and the website Criminal Legal News. A photo of the late New York Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is at the top of the page, along with the words: “You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own facts.”
The site also includes several redacted letters of support from friends and family to the court, though her husband’s missive isn’t included in the mix.
Under “resources,” the site lists Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz’s book Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo.
A longtime friend and lawyer for Epstein, Dershowitz has faced abuse accusations himself from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who says Epstein kept her as his “sex slave” from 1999 to 2002. (Dershowitz denies her claims, and is embroiled in defamation litigation with her in Manhattan federal court.)
Dershowitz, who previously penned an essay supporting Maxwell, told The Daily Beast he recommended her family’s new attorney, David Oscar Markus, after one of Maxwell’s siblings contacted him. As we reported, Markus is a close friend of Dershowitz. The famed lawyer told The Daily Beast: “They found him on their own and then they asked my opinion and I just told the truth: he’s an exceptional extraordinary lawyer I’m very proud to have taught.”
Twitter trolls were eagerly flocking to Maxwell’s latest account on Friday.
“Nope. I read all of the allegations and evidence in court documents, and we all saw her hide to evade capture. I’ll stick with publicly documented facts, not defense presented by those who share her values and beliefs,” one person commented.
Another chimed in, “I think the rampant child molestation is the reason the public doesn’t like your sister. Still nasty that she doesn’t flush the toilet though.”
