NEW YORK — Under grueling cross-examination, a key prosecution witness in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking trial admitted Wednesday that she gave misleading and evasive statements to the FBI during a series of interviews in 2019 and 2020.
In those interviews, she couldn’t recall any abuse by Maxwell — and wasn’t sure that Maxwell was present when she was sexually assaulted by Palm Beach millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
For most of the day, Maxwell’s lawyer, Laura Menninger, pointed to inconsistencies between what the witness, “Jane,” told authorities over the past three years and what she testified to in court a day earlier.
In one court exchange, Jane — who is using a pseudonym to protect her privacy — acknowledged that her memory of events from more than 20 years ago had faded. Menninger pointed out that Jane told prosecutors in 2019 that she was 14 when she was first abused by Epstein, and that it “may” have happened during a trip she took with him and Maxwell to see “The Lion King” on Broadway.
But “The Lion King” didn’t open on Broadway until 1997, which would have made Jane 17 — not 14.
“I was incorrect,” Jane admitted, adding later: “Once again, my timeline was wrong.”
Upon further grilling by Menninger, Jane insisted that the government reports misstated some of what she told FBI agents.
“A lot of this is out of sequence and inaccurate,’’ she told the jury. “I never saw this report before, and I wasn’t recorded during any of these interviews.”
According to those reports, Jane also told the FBI that she couldn’t recall whether Maxwell ever touched her — or whether Maxwell was in the room when she was abused by Epstein.
She said Epstein helped advance her education and career, and she visited him about every 10 days to two weeks, from the time she was 14 until she moved to Los Angeles when she was 18.
But his help came at a cost: Jane alleges she was raped by Epstein and forced to participate in group sex with Epstein and Maxwell, and other young women, some of whom she identified by their first names.
She recalled singing at “60 Minutes” journalist Mike Wallace’s 80th birthday — and being introduced to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was just 14.
She described a difficult childhood, particularly after her father, a music conductor, passed away. Her mother encouraged Jane to spend time with Epstein and Maxwell so that she could use their connections in the entertainment business to advance her acting and singing career.
But Jane told authorities conflicting accounts about the abuse — and at first, she didn’t want to cooperate with authorities at all.
Experts say that most sex abuse victims — particularly those who have been abused when they were young — have inconsistencies in their stories. Wendy Murphy, a former Massachusetts prosecutor who teaches a course on sexual violence law at New England Law Boston, explained that while such inconsistencies matter, they don’t typically sway juries.
“Every juror has told a story differently,” she said. “If you were perfectly consistent, that would be less credible.”
Jane is the first of four alleged victims scheduled to testify during the trial. Maxwell, the daughter of the late British publishing baron Robert Maxwell, had a relationship with Epstein for at least a decade. She faces eight counts of sex trafficking.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York indicted the disgraced financier on sex-trafficking charges, and he was awaiting trial in August 2019 when he was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
His death was ruled a suicide by hanging, but Epstein’s brother Mark has said he doesn’t believe that Epstein killed himself.
After his death, the FBI turned its attention to Maxwell, who was indicted on similar sex charges in July 2020.
On Wednesday, during her redirect, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe was able to mitigate some of the damage done by the defense. She asked Jane to explain why she initially didn’t want to cooperate in the criminal case, and later, why she failed to tell prosecutors the full extent of Maxwell’s role in facilitating Epstein’s abuse.
“I was sitting in a room full of strangers and I was telling them the most shameful secrets I kept with me,’’ Jane told the jury. “It was just too difficult.”
As time went on, she began to trust prosecutors, and she became more comfortable talking about the abuse, she said, particularly after they limited the number of investigators participating in her interviews.
But Menninger suggested that Jane, an experienced, successful soap opera actress, was deploying her acting skills to implicate Maxwell because she wanted to cash in on a large payout from Epstein’s estate. Ultimately, she was awarded $5 million as part of a victims’ compensation program set up for women who were abused by Epstein.
“I am here to hopefully find closure on all of this. This is something I’ve been running from my whole life,” Jane told jurors.
Jane, who was dressed in a soft gray sweater, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, told jurors that she is still trying to heal. Moe asked her to tell the court what the financial settlement meant to her. At that point, she broke down in sobs.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to compose herself.
“I hope this puts it all to an end and I can go on with my life.”
Three other accusers are scheduled to testify against Maxwell during the trial, which is expected to last as long as six weeks.
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