NEW YORK — Ghislaine Maxwell’s former assistant told a jury Thursday she “looked up to” the accused sex trafficker.
The British socialite called the assistant, Cimberly Espinosa, as she began mounting her defense. The prosecution rested last week.
Espinosa spoke glowingly of Maxwell, who she started working for in 1996.
“I looked up to her very much,” said Espinosa. “I attribute my career right now as an executive assistant to what I learned working for Ghislaine.”
The assistant said she understood Maxwell to be Jeffrey Epstein’s romantic partner — and property manager. At the time, Maxwell was an employee of J. Epstein Company, which had an office on Madison Avenue.
Maxwell started dating other men while still working for Epstein, Espinosa said. Around that time, Espinosa testified, Epstein ordered her to send bouquets to a young woman she suspected Epstein was dating. The young woman, Espinosa said, was over 18 years old.
“I feel like Jeffrey liked her very much. I feel like they were a couple,” the assistant said of the young woman.
Defense attorney Christian Everdell asked if Maxwell knew that Epstein had asked Espinosa to send flowers to the young woman.
“No she did not,” replied Espinosa. “(Maxwell) did not know.”
Near the end of Espinosa’s employment with Maxwell around 2002, she said Maxwell and Epstein’s romance had fizzled.
“They just kind of went their separate ways,” she said. “They would not show up at the office around the same time or leave together, things like that.”
Espinosa also testified that while working for Maxwell she saw a woman, identified in court as Jane.
Jane was the first accuser to take the stand last month in Maxwell’s trial. Jane said Maxwell and Epstein routinely sexually abused her starting when she was just 14 years old.
Espinosa recalled seeing Jane three or four times inside the J. Epstein company’s office.
Asked how old she appeared when Espinosa met her, the witness said, “probably 18.”
“Jane’s mother said that Jane was Jeffrey’s goddaughter ... She was treated with the utmost respect,” said Espinosa, adding that the teen was considered “family” of Jeffrey’s.
Espinosa said she worked beside Maxwell for six years and “never” saw the socialite or Epstein misbehaving around minors.
The assistant looked back fondly on her work for the wealthy socialite and philanthropist who was friends with the rich and famous. She recalled that her job interview with Maxwell took place in the back of a limousine driving around Manhattan.
“It was a different interview than I had experienced before, so I liked it. It was fun, and I liked meeting Ghislaine,” Espinosa said.
Prosecutors had only one question for Espinosa: Did she ever work out of Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse or his other properties?
“No,” said Espinosa.
“No further questions,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said.
Prosecutors say the multimillionaire sex offender trafficked girls for sexual abuse to his mansions in New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and New Mexico.
The defense also called Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who has testified about false memories on behalf of other high-profile defendants, including Robert Durst and Harvey Weinstein.
Loftus told the jury that memories that are not real “can be very vivid, detailed, people can be confident about them.”
“They can be emotional about them,” she added.
Of the more than 300 trials where she’s testified as an expert witness, Loftus has been called by prosecutors just once, she said.
Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to charges she procured minors to have sex with Epstein and lied about the conduct under oath from 1994 to 2004.
Her attorneys say government prosecutors have unfairly substituted her for a “narcissistic” Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019. They claim her accusers’ lawyers manipulated their memories to cash in on the Epstein scandal.
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