Ghislaine Maxwell: how a tycoon's daughter became a deliverer of minors to be abused by Epstein

Ghislaine Maxwell awaits sentencing in her cell. Most likely, she will spend the rest of her life in prison. In a miserable cell, eating bad food, isolated. Without the aesthetic care to which she dedicated several hours a day. She was the daughter of a magnate and the partner of another. But now there is nothing left for him. Not even freedom.

Ghislaine Maxwell was born on Christmas 1961. Her life, perhaps, changed within three weeks of her birth. The car in which her 15-year-old brother Michael was in was in a serious car accident. The teenager remained in a vegetative state for seven years until his death. The misfortune changed family life.

In the midst of despair and grief, no one had much time or courage to pay attention to the newborn baby. Her mother later recognized this in her memoirs. But Ghislaine fought for her place and took it upon herself to seek the attention of her parents . After a few years, that situation was reversed and her father privileged her over her brothers.

The family lived in a large castle in Oxford that had 53 rooms. It was the communal building but being in a poor state of repair and being too onerous for the city, Robert Maxwell , with his typical commercial skill, managed to keep it for almost no cost with the commitment to maintain it.

The mighty Maxwell was born in what was then Czechoslavakia. He came from a very humble family. He excelled in the war. His career in the business world was brilliant. He was a publisher, member of the English parliament and media magnate. He had a great influence on European life for years through his contacts, deals, companies and pressures.

Being Daddy's favorite did not save Ghislaine from receiving his verbal and physical abuse. At the family table, Robert would question his children on some historical or world political issue and become enraged if they didn't know the answer. The punishments were very severe and one of the father's specialties was to hit them with his belt.

Robert Maxwell had all his hopes pinned on Ghislaine. It is rumored that he pulled strings and arranged soirees for her to meet John John Kennedy, whom he intended as his son-in-law.

Daddy's Favorite was first the most exclusive school in England; then Oxford University. He studied literature and modern history. He had the world at his disposal. Her father made her director of the Oxford Club, a football team he owned, and provided her with the money to start a company that did corporate gifts.

He had a profuse social life. She was beautiful, overflowing with attitude, dressed in very expensive clothes, always in the latest fashions and participated in the most important social events. She Every week she was featured in current magazines, on social news . Ghislaine was a businesswoman and executive but was seen as a British socialite, as a member of the Upper British, of the Jet Set. The important thing in his life did not seem to be his professional tasks but his (multiple) social appearances.

For a time she dated the Italian Count Gianfranco Cicogna, an aristocrat who, like her, enjoyed socializing.

In January 1991, she crossed the Atlantic. She also became a figure in Manhattan. Her father had bought the New York Daily News and she was sent to head the project, as Robert's direct representative. Maxwell. But that reign in New York was very brief.

On November 5, 1991, Robert Maxwell disappeared from the deck of his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine (it would be redundant to explain the name), while sailing around the Canary Islands . Shortly after, he was found lifeless in the water.

The death of Robert Maxwell has been shrouded in mystery. Suicide? Sudden heart failure? An accident? Murder? All the hypotheses were brandished and had their fervent defenders. Life and the stormy (and even ruinous) present of her businesses opened every possibility. Ghislaine always maintained that her father had been murdered. Her brothers, on the other hand, never believed it. For them it was a suicide or an accident.

After Maxwell's death, a gale hit his companies. A colossal fraud was uncovered, concocted by the tycoon to inflate the value of his assets and fail to comply with his tax obligations. The debts were overwhelming. Nothing was what it seemed. And the absence of the supreme chief hastened the outcome. The empire began to crumble. Two of Ghislaine's brothers were arrested and charged with fraud.

At the end of 1992 she settled in Manhattan. She left England behind. Her family's problems, the investigation of justice, her economic difficulties, made her look for a new environment.

She had an annual income of $100,000 that her father had left her in a trust; That would have allowed anyone to live well, but without the great luxuries and exotic programs of the past, to which she was accustomed. He rented an apartment for which he paid around $2,000 per month. And he started working in the real estate market. I needed to work. It was the first time that had happened in his life.

But suddenly, there was a radical change in their real estate situation. She went on to live in a five-story mansion, valued at around 15 million dollars, in downtown Manhattan . The parties began again, the photos in the magazines.

The money to acquire the property, it was learned, was later provided by Jeffrey Epstein. They had started a love relationship that at first went unnoticed but soon filled the pages of magazines and the gossip columns of newspapers.

Does anyone know how to thicken a casserole? It is looking far too runny :(

— Dave Dawes Tue Sep 28 16:40:43 +0000 2010

Without knowing the sentimental implications of each one, it can be affirmed that in practical terms the relationship brought benefits to both. Epstein managed to get into elite and high-society circles where he was off limits (or was not even considered) and she came back, suddenly, when it seemed like a thing of the past that she had drowned in the Canaries with Robert Maxwell, the luxurious life: mansions, private jets, sumptuous expenses.

The couple lasted a few years. But after the breakup Ghislaine and Epstein remained related. In the recent trial a witness testified that she was "the lady of the house."

The relationship that persisted was difficult to define but had its obvious consequences: “I was part girlfriend, part employee, kind of a general manager and best friend. I was the one who fixed problems and facilitated things” said the witness before the court.

She organized the house and staff. She gave each new employee a 58-page manual with instructions on how they should behave (they could not address Epstein or look him in the eye) and made them sign a confidentiality agreement. She was the one who gave the orders and handled the day-to-day finances.

Ghislaine managed to recover the status and fortune lost after the death of her father through her relationship with the financier. And she also did so after the break with Epstein. But this last step showed what she was willing to do in order not to suffer economic needs or descend socially. She went from being Epstein's girlfriend to his madam.

She would get Epstein the teenage girls to give him his three daily sexual massages, talk them down, threaten them, convince them to go on a trip with the financier and his powerful friends, make what was necessary to recruit replacements and even participated in several of the sessions.

Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were alike in many ways beyond their relationship with Ghislaine. Both had humble, deprived childhoods. They were made from below through hard work, excessive ambition and lack of scruples. They dominated his business by force of despotic management, exploited his contacts. They were serial abusers of the people who worked with them. They became mega millionaires. They believed that their power was so immense that justice could not reach them. And the death of the two occurred under suspicious circumstances, surrounded by uncertainties, and at a time when their empires were collapsing.

You can't understand Ghislaine's relationship with Epstein without looking at the one she had with her father. She went from being under the influence of one monster to being under the power of another.

In the trial that ended a few days ago Maxwell was found guilty. It was proven that she was the one who obtained the minors for Epstein to abuse them. She earned her trust, and when they resisted she was the one who convinced them to stay. He took them on trips so they would become sex toys for Epstein and his powerful friends.

“She pretended to be a woman that minors could trust,” the prosecutor said in his indictment. Ghislaine, on occasion, also participated in sexual acts.

Ghislaine Maxwell maintained her innocence despite the massive evidence against her. At some point she believed that she would not be judged but Epstein's death changed the situation. He put her in the front row. Therefore, her defense and her brother argued that she was just a scapegoat.

You will receive your sentence in the coming weeks. She still has yet to be tried in two cases for perjury for her statements as her witness while Epstein was being investigated. She faces a sentence of at least forty years in prison. Ghislaine will spend the rest of her days in prison.

At the hearings, she was haughty and impassive. She did not acknowledge any of her crimes or express a word of understanding towards the victims. Now, the US justice system is supposed to go after other powerful people who participated in the abuses caused by her and by Epstein. One of the main targets is Prince Andrew.

Weeks before the trial, Ghislaine Maxwell gave an interview. She complained about the detention conditions. She said that they give her rotten food, that she lives with rats, that they mistreat her, that she pulls out her hair however she can to clean up her image. He described their living conditions as hellish. It is under surveillance 24 hours a day. 10 cameras follow their movements anywhere in the jail. They don't want what happened with Epstein to happen.

Those conditions are at the opposite extreme of how she lived under her father's or Epstein's rule. The paradox is that she did everything to maintain the excessive privileges that she enjoyed all her life, but that led her to a 2 x 3 prison.

Any luxuries one can imagine, she enjoyed. Mansions, huge yachts, luxury hotels, private islands, personal assistants, daily massages, never repeating a dress, the most sophisticated restaurants, wines worth thousands of dollars a bottle at every meal. Daughter of a millionaire, wife of another, Ghislaine Maxwell spent more than forty years frequenting the most exclusive circles. He was meeting with royalty, presidents, moguls, Hollywood figures. His present is another. There is nothing left of all that. Not even freedom.

He lived in a mansion in the middle of Manhattan that he sold for $16 million. She spends her days today, in the same city, but in a 3 by 2 cell. Nothing remained of what she was. After being found guilty, her miserable days, it seems, will extend until the end of her life.

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