Ghislaine Maxwell again asked to be released from jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, proposing a $28.5 million bond that she claims will ensure she doesn’t flee.
Maxwell, 58, has been jailed in New York City since she was arrested on July 2 at her estate in Bradford, New Hampshire. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan rejected Maxwell’s initial offer to post a $5 million bond and submit to house arrest, ruling that her “extraordinary” financial resources and “international ties” presented a risk she would flee.
“Ms. Maxwell is proposing an expansive set of bail conditions that is more than adequate to address any concern regarding risk of flight and reasonably assure Ms. Maxwell’s presence in court,” her lawyers said in a legal brief.
Maxwell, an Oxford-educated former British socialite, holds citizenship from France, which doesn’t extradite its citizens. Her lawyers say she should be released to help prepare to defend the charges. They claim she’s vulnerable to infection with COVID-19 if she remains jailed, and that she’s been mistreated.
Maxwell’s bond request was filed under seal in Manhattan federal court on Dec. 8 and is now public, with redactions. Her legal team claimed that people willing to co-sign Maxwell’s bond “have been physically stalked by members of the tabloid press and have had paparazzi jump out of bushes and in front of their cars to snap pictures of them.”
Nathan has rejected Maxwell’s request for a closed hearing. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to the charges that she trafficked girls with her former boyfriend, money manager Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was arrested last year, and his subsequent death in a Manhattan lockup was ruled a suicide.
