At the culmination of Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, the defendant herself was virtually expressionless as five guilty counts were returned. Outside the court in New York, people voiced surprise at the verdict, along with a sense of relief, and no small amount of exhaustion after waiting through days of jury deliberations.
After the verdict, Maxwell poured water from a Fiji water bottle into a paper cup, spoke to her lawyers, looked down at her feet. But she said nothing, and did not turn to her family on front bench of the visitors gallery, offering a reserve than many have interpreted as cold-heartedness.
But the French-born, British socialite, whom others saw as a party girl who took a dramatically wrong turn and who now faces the likelihood of decades in prison when she is sentenced next year, has betrayed little of herself throughout her trial in a Manhattan’s federal court.
Even as jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell, 60, guilty of five of six counts – with their questions indicating at times a more favorable outcome for the defendant – she seemed attentive but also distant, ultimately telling presiding judge Alison Nathan that “the government has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt so there is no reason for me to testify”.
But in striking contrast to expressions of confidence and bonhomie during the early days of the trial, she did not hug her lawyers on the way out. Nor did Maxwell’s family stop outside the court to express their disappointment.
Instead, brother Kevin Maxwell issued a statement saying the family believes she will be vindicated on appeal. “We firmly believe in our sister’s innocence,” he said.
While the rest of the defense team left hurriedly without comment, Bobbi Sternheim, Maxwell’s lead defense attorney, told reporters: “We firmly believe in Ghislaine’s innocence, obviously. We are very disappointed with the verdict. We have already started working on the appeal and we are confident she will be vindicated.”
Some in the crowd that had gathered said they were surprised by the verdict. Amid New York’s Omicron variant surge, a trial that had been anticipated to be a blockbuster, breathlessly-reported judicial event, had already become a side-show that was likely to end in a covid-induced mistrial or a less sweeping verdict of guilt.
Outside the court house, which is linked by a bridge to the detention center where Jeffrey Epstein took his life, it has been quiet for days as deliberations dragged on with jurors sending sometimes cryptic notes to Judge Nathan for witness transcripts and clarification on jury instructions.
But in the hours before the jury returned, stray protesters and activists were replaced by a sense of anticipation as TV crews began setting up lights and awnings and news anchors prepared to break into scheduled broadcasts.
But there were no court-step statements from women victimized by Epstein and Maxwell, or grandiloquent pronouncements from victims’ rights attorneys. Gone, too, were protesters and activists, some expressing an affiliation to the Q-anon conspiracy cult, intent on harnessing the trial to their agenda.
Still, the crowd of media outside the court drew bystanders who offered a nuanced interpretation: “Americans are very moral people, they think about right and wrong all the time,” offered Marc Stone. “It’s a major part of American culture, and that’s sometimes a problem.”
Stone was hinting, as many have said during Maxwell’s trial, and her defense claimed in court, that she was being tried merely as a cipher for Jeffrey Epstein, who had evaded justice by taking his own life. “The charges against Ghislaine Maxwell are for things that Jeffrey Epstein did,” Sternheim had told the jury. “But she is not Jeffrey Epstein and she is not like Jeffrey Epstein.”
Others expressed similar thoughts. Jarva Lund, who had been sketching witnesses at the trial, said it was possible to see Maxwell as a perpetrator and a victim. “If this was Epstein it would probably be more celebratory, but she’s a woman who was probably abused who has been convicted for abuse and perversion.”
If there were double standards in play, they were certainly perceived by Elizabeth Stein, one of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s accusers, who had been denied access to the courtroom earlier in the day. She told the Miami Herald that no accommodations had been made for her or other victims attending the trial, while Maxwell’s family received priority.
Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor and who has taught sexual violence law at New England Law for 20 years, told the Guardian Wednesday that the government had put on a tight, focused case against Maxwell.
“She was equally guilty, equally culpable and equally evil. She was not a subordinate peon – she made $30m dollars – and became an extremely wealthy woman because she chose to be involved in his conspiratorial industry to traffic children,” Murphy said.
“It matters what she did, and she allowed her sex to be used as tool to manipulate these girls. When you exploit your own sex to facilitate, support and commit acts of sexual abuse you might not be able to get away with as a man [it] does not entitle you to compassion. It entitled you to extra punishment and extra shame.”
