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A woman testified at the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell on Tuesday that the British socialite was sometimes present when she was sexually abused as a teenager by the late US financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The woman, identified only as “Jane,” is the first of four women expected to take the witness stand during Maxwell’s trial in Manhattan.
Maxwell is accused of grooming underage girls who were sexually exploited by Epstein, who committed suicide in a New York prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial.
The 59-year-old heiress has pleaded not guilty to six counts of enticing and transporting minors for sex that could send her to prison for up to 80 years.
Under questioning from prosecutors, Jane said she met Epstein and Maxwell at a summer arts camp in Michigan in 1994 when she was 14 years old.
She said Maxwell and a little terrier dog approached her while she was eating ice cream with friends.
Epstein joined them and they chatted, she said. Maxwell and Epstein told her they were camp benefactors.
“He seemed very interested to know what I thought about the camp,” Jane said.
Jane said her father, a music conductor, had died of leukemia nine months earlier. The family was bankrupt and had lost their home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Epstein and Maxwell said they also lived in Palm Beach and asked for her phone number, she said. Jane gave them her mother’s landline.
Epstein invited her and her mother over for tea a few days after she started eighth grade and told her he likes to mentor young students, Jane said.
Jane said she started going over to Epstein’s home by herself and Maxwell was often present. “I assumed they were married,” she said, or “she works for him.”
She said her mother was not invited on these visits during which they would “hang out,” “chit chat,” shop and go to the movies.
She said Maxwell would…
Source : france24
