Jeffrey Epstein's ex girlfriend has pleaded not guilty to charges she recruited girls and women for the billionaire financier to sexually abuse more than two decades ago.
The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell appeared in a video court hearing in Manhattan.
Maxwell, who is being held in a Brooklyn jail, appeared tired, with her hair pulled back and was wearing a brown T-shirt and tortoiseshell glasses.
Maxwell, 58, has been held in jail without bail since her July 2 arrest at her million-dollar New Hampshire estate, where prosecutors say she refused to open the door for FBI agents, who broke through to find that she had retreated to an interior room.
She was charged with recruiting at least three girls, one as young as 14, for paedophile Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997.
An indictment alleged that she helped groom the victims to endure sexual abuse and was sometimes there when Epstein abused them.
It also alleged that she lied during a 2016 deposition in a civil case stemming from Epstein's abuse of girls and women.
Epstein killed himself in August 2019, several weeks after he was confronted by two accusers at a bail hearing who insisted that he should remain in jail while awaiting sex trafficking charges that alleged he abused girls at his Manhattan and Florida mansions in the early 2000s.
Maxwell's lawyers have said she "vigorously denies the charges, intends to fight them, and is entitled to the presumption of innocence."
Epstein had a wide circle of friends including the Duke of York, Donald Trump and former US president Bill Clinton.
