On the second day of Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, the first alleged victim testified. The woman’s name is known to the court and lawyers, but not to the public. She appeared in court on Tuesday under the pseudonym “Jane”. Jane said she was sexually abused in 1994 at the age of 14 by millionaire Jeffrey Epstein and that Maxwell played a key role in initiating that abuse.
Maxwell must defend himself in the New York trial against allegations of having fed underage girls to Epstein between 1994 and 2004 in order that Epstein would sexually assault them. She denies the allegations.
Prosecutors will present four witnesses in the coming weeks, all of whom claim to have been molested by Epstein as minors and that Maxwell played an active role in it. How the defense intends to undermine these statements was observed for the first time on Tuesday.
Maxwell’s lawyer Bobbi Sternheim did not go into Jane’s allegations in detail. She pointed out that as an adult, the witness worked as an actress and singer. She has acted in films, sitcoms and commercials. She is currently playing in a soap opera on television. “She’s a professional at playing roles,” said Sternheim.
The defense argued Jane had shown no interest in prosecuting Epstein until 2019. In August of that year, Epstein was found hanged in the cell of a Manhattan prison after being arrested a month earlier on suspicion of sexual abuse of minors. Jane, according to the defense, is now speculating on receiving millions in compensation from the fund set up for Epstein’s victims. “When the money was there, she changed her mind,” said Sternheim.
The defense of former film producer Harvey Weinstein, who was convicted of sexual abuse and rape in New York last year, had tried a similar strategy. Most of his victims were actresses. The defense extensively indicated that the witnesses played roles professionally. That didn’t convince the jury. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison, a sentence that is considered seminal.
A nightmare that would last for many years
Jane told the court on Tuesday that she went to a gifted child camp in Michigan in 1994. She was sitting at a picnic table when a man and woman were walking by: it was Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein said that he promoted talented children. In the course of the conversation it became clear that Epstein and Maxwell as well as Jane lived in Palm Beach, Florida. Telephone numbers have been exchanged. Prosecutor Pomerantz said, “What Jane didn’t know was the fact that this meeting was the beginning of a nightmare that would last for many years.”
According to the witness, Maxwell presented himself as a kind of big sister. Maxwell was in her early thirties at the time. Epstein had talked to her about her future and he had shown her various options. He said, for example, that he could introduce her to talent agencies. The two, Epstein and Maxwell, met her several times in Florida, for example they went to the cinema with her. According to her statement, Jane visited the Epstein estate in Florida once a week at the time.
One day Epstein took her to the property’s pool house. He sat on a couch, pulled down his sweatpants and pulled them towards him while he masturbated. “I froze with fear,” said Jane in court on Tuesday, “I had never seen a penis before.”
The defense tries to dismiss these accounts as fiction. Music and the fine arts had been discussed at Epstein’s Palm Beach home. Nothing wrong, nothing bad happened.
The public prosecutor said on Tuesday: “This man and this woman were after you.”