Alleged victims of Ghislaine Maxwell delivered statements rife with anguish and scorn during a bail hearing in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, saying the accused co-conspirator thought Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young girls was “funny.”
After providing the government’s argument against the ultimately unsuccessful bail motion, Southern District of New York (SDNY) Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe first read aloud the statement of a Jane Doe survivor who said she would fear for her safety if the defendant was granted pre-trial release.
“I knew Ghislaine Maxwell for over ten years,” her statement read. “Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did.”
“It was her calculating and sadistic manipulation that anesthetized me,” she said.
Doe pleaded with U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan to keep Maxwell incarcerated, saying that she received a phone call in the middle of the night threatening the life of her two-year-old child after being listed as a witness in a civil action against the defendant.
The alleged victim described “heinous and dehumanizing abuse” suffered at the hands of Epstein with Maxwell playing the role of an enthusiastic enabler.
“He was in charge,” Doe’s statement continued. “She egged him on and encouraged him. He told me of others she had recruited and she thought it was funny.”
Describing “the sociopathic manner in which she nurtured [their] relationship and abused [her] trust,” Doe said Maxwell “would have done anything to get what she wanted to satisfy Mr. Epstein” and that she drew her victims in “only to entrap them.”
“She was a predator and a monster,” the statement continued.
“I know what she has done, I know how many lives that she has ruined,” the woman said. “And because I know this, I know she has nothing to lose, has no remorse and will never admit what she has done.”
“If she believes she risks prison, she will never come back,” Doe continued. “If she is out, I need to be protected.”
“I personally know her international connections that would allow her to go anywhere in the world and disappear at a minute’s notice–or make others disappear if she needs to,” Doe’s statement concluded.
Maxwell and Epstein accuser Annie Farmer–recently featured in a Netflix documentary about the Southern District of Florida’s controversial handling of the original Epstein investigation in 2007–also spoke out during the hearing.
“I met Ghislaine Maxwell when I was 16 years old,” Farmer said. “She is a sexual predator who groomed and abused me and countless other children and young women. She has never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes or the devastating, lasting effects her actions caused.”
“Instead, she has lied under oath and tormented her survivors,” Farmer went on.
Striking several of the same chords as Doe, Farmer noted that Maxwell has vast international contacts who would likely help her evade arrest and exact vengeance on those who dare to speak out about their treatment.
“She also has demonstrated contempt for our legal system by committing perjury,” she added.
Farmer called on the court not to grant bail–adding that the total number of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s alleged victims may never be known.
“But those of us who survived implore this court to detain her until she’s forced to stand trial and answer for her crimes,” Farmer concluded.
[image via Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images]