United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell: Opening Statements

Prosecutor: Maxwell was the "lady of the house" and helped Epstein run a "pyramid scheme of abuse"

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara E. Pomerantz (here’s an excellent synopsis of both legal teams via The Miami Herald) presented the opening statement for the prosecution. She argued that Ghislaine Maxwell was not just an associate of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, but an integral part of his sexual abuse of young women.

She painted a picture of Maxwell as a sexual predator who supplied Epstein with troubled young women to sexually assault in exchange for him funding her jet set lifestyle.

Pomerantz said that during the years she spent as Epstein’s procurer, Maxwell maintained plausible deniability by making sure that Epstein’s staff knew to “see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing.”

“The defendant [Maxwell] was the lady of the house,” she said. “There was a culture of silence. That was by design….the defendant’s design.”

Over the years, Pomerantz said that Maxwell and Epstein developed a “playbook.” The first step was finding young women - who Pomerantz specified were often underage. They did this, she said, by “often targeting the daughters of single mothers.”

Pomerantz said that they asked what the young women wanted to be when they grew up, and then promised to “make their dreams come true.”

After the young women became comfortable with her, Pomerantz said, Maxwell normalized the sexual touching of Jeffrey Epstein using the “ruse of massage”.

This started, Pomerantz said, with Epstein lying facedown and then “escalated as he turned over and touched the girls.” Sometimes, she said, he touched their vaginas with a vibrator; other times he masturbated, received oral sex and/or penetrated them vaginally.

Pomerantz kept reiterating that Maxwell was the one who helped “these children” feel comfortable. Sometimes, she said, Ghislaine was in the room while Epstein had sexual contact with women.

Maxwell would find the young women by approaching them directly - at summer camp, at holiday resorts, and sometimes in parking lots.

Pomerantz said: “She knew exactly what was going to happen to these children when she sent them inside a massage room.”

For Maxwell, Pomerantz said that the young women were “just a means to support her lifestyle.”

Epstein had the money - and Maxwell would do whatever it took to satisfy them so that she did not lose access to the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

Pomerantz said that we will hear from Jane, who “will testify that she was 14 years old when she met defendant and Epstein at summer camp in 1994” as well as another 16-year-old who alleged that Maxwell told her that she was going to get a massage then touched her breasts - and a third victim who was 17 when she claims that Maxwell recruited her in a parking lot “out of the blue.”

Pomerantz said that over time, the alleged “playbook” between Epstein and Maxwell evolved. Instead of Maxwell having to approach each young woman directly, Pomerantz stated that they began a “pyramid scheme of abuse” by asking the young women who were sexually abused to “bring other girls over.”

If they did so, Epstein would give them several hundred dollars as a “bonus” - in addition to the hundreds he paid for the sexual assault disguised as “massage.”

This was, she said, because he knew that these girls’ families did not have much money. Epstein - and Maxwell - purposely targeted victims that they KNEW they could exploit.

That’s all for now - I’ll flip over to the next page of my notebook and present highlights from the defense’s opening statement next.

NOTE: I’m writing these in real time - so please forgive the occasional typo as I’m trying my best to get you these in a timely manner AND decipher my penmanship since no cell phones or recording devices were allowed in the courtroom.

And as always, thanks for reading!