Topline
Former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer said Friday that sealing a 40-minute video of late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach property—which is not available to the public—would make it seem as though the house was a “domicile of debauchery,” while prosecutors detailed risqué items found at Epstein’s homes, including a “sexually suggestive” photo of a young girl that was hung outside the Palm Beach home’s master bedroom.
This courtroom sketch shows Ghislaine Maxwell in court for her trial on charges of sex trafficking … [+]
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Key Facts
After jurors were shown the sealed video of Epstein’s Palm Beach house, Judge Alison Nathan said a redacted version could be made for the public — Maxwell’s lawyer agreed, saying keeping the video secret makes it seem like the house was a “domicile of debauchery.”
The judge ordered the release of a redacted version of the footage recorded by Gregory Parkinson, a retired crime scene investigator, while he searched Epstein’s house in 2005.
The prosecution presented the video on the fifth day of Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial in federal court in Manhattan.
Maxwell, charged with trafficking underage girls as young as 14 for abuse and exploitation by convicted pedophile Epstein between 1994 and 2004, was the disgraced financier’s ex-girlfriend and an alleged accomplice.
Prosecutors said authorities found schoolgirl costumes at his New York home and sexually suggestive images in Epstein’s Palm Beach residence, one of which was of a “clearly underaged” girl “pulling down her underwear, exposing her buttocks” displayed outside the master bedroom, which Maxwell allegedly shared with Epstein, the Guardian reported.
The sealed footage also showed a photo of Epstein with Pope John Paul and another with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro — apparently corroborating Epstein housekeeper Juan Alessi’s earlier testimony he saw photos of Epstein with them.
Hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin and his spouse Eva Andersson-Dubin, who had dated Epstein, were mentioned in court for the first time; Alessi said she visited “very regularly with the husband and the kids,” according to reporter Joe Pike of Sky News, who was in court.
Key Background
Maxwell, 59, has been accused by four women of facilitating Epstein’s abuse when they were minors, and was sometimes in the room during the sexual massages and touched the girls herself. She is the first high-profile woman to undergo trial for accusations of sexually abusing girls since the #MeToo movement …….