Ghislaine Maxwell’s fellow prison inmates are detailing punishments they received after speaking out about the convicted sex trafficker.
Former inmates at the Texas federal prison camp where Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice and one-time girlfriend, is serving out her prison sentence, said they were screamed at and reprimanded for speaking publicly about the special treatment she is receiving, CNN reported.
Maxwell was inexplicably transferred to a low-security prison, Federal Prison Camp Bryan, known as “Club Fed,” last year, just one week after speaking with then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Some of her fellow inmates at Bryan said they were transferred to a higher security facility after speaking out about her cushy treatment.
Julie Howell, a former inmate serving time for stealing $1 million from the university where she worked, overlapped with Maxwell at Bryan.
She said she spoke to a reporter with The Telegraph in which she detailed that she and “Every inmate l’ve heard from is upset [Maxwell’s] here.”
“This facility is supposed to house non-violent offenders. Human trafficking is a violent crime. She helped find, groom, and traffick [sic] children for Epstein,” Howell wrote to the reporter, according to a copy of the email reviewed by CNN.
After speaking with the reporter, trouble ensued as the prison warden, Tanisha Hall, reportedly laid into her.
“She came in and asked what I was thinking, said that her phone was blowing up all weekend; I ruined her weekend; I shouldn’t have talked to them,” Howell said.
Howell told CNN she was then sent to Houston to stay in a higher security federal detention center.
The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Another inmate, who spoke to CNN anonymously out of fear of retaliation, said she overlapped with Maxwell at “Club Fed.” Upon Maxwell’s arrival, she said the prison guards made it clear that speaking about the sexual predator would not be allowed.
“Somebody in my [dorm] made a comment: ‘You know, this is what happens when you bring a pedophile to a camp.’ And [the warden] started screaming: ‘Don’t ever make that comment. I never want to hear you say that again,’” the former Bryan inmate recalled.
She and other inmates soon came to realize that Maxwell was getting special privileges in prison, like getting her meals delivered to her and being escorted around the facility by armed guards. Maxwell was also given special access to areas like the prison chapel for private visits.
The inmate said in September she spoke with the media about Maxwell’s presence at the prison, but said she was careful not to be critical as she knew other inmates had been retaliated against for speaking out.
She said that within an hour of that call, she was summoned to the lieutenant’s office and, on the way, she ran into the prison warden, who gave her an earful.
“I was diverted to listen to the warden scream at me in front of the main cafeteria area,” the inmate said. “I told her I wasn’t sharing her business, I was speaking on my behalf. And she just basically berated me there and told me that I was jeopardizing the safety of her staff and interfering with an FBI investigation, of which I knew nothing about.”
The Epstein files have swarmed the Trump administration with controversy for nearly a year.
Last year, Blanche personally traveled to Florida to interview Maxwell, a move seen as highly unusual for a senior Justice Department official.
A week later, Maxwell was moved from the minimum-security facility to the lower security facility in Texas.
Maxwell is said to be actively seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump, who shared a decades-long friendship with Epstein before having a falling out sometime in the 2000s. Through her legal team, she has said she is willing to testify to Congress about Epstein if she is granted clemency.
While the idea of pardoning Maxwell has faced significant pushback on Capitol Hill, the Trump White House has yet to rule it out entirely.
