Prosecutors slam Ghislaine Maxwell's 'window dressing' passport gambit
On two previous bail attempts, a judge has deemed her a flight risk
Article content
Socialite and accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s latest scheme to get sprung from a New York jail was met with derision by U.S. federal prosecutors on Wednesday.
Maxwell, 59, who is awaiting her July trial on sex-trafficking charges, has offered to renounce her U.K. and French citizenship — if she gets bail.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Prosecutors slam Ghislaine Maxwell's 'window dressing' passport gambit Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
But the feds blasted the gambit as “window dressing.”
Maxwell was allegedly the muse and “pimp” of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It’s alleged she groomed girls for sex with the twisted financier.
On two previous bail attempts, a judge has deemed the jet-setter a flight risk.
“The defendant’s claimed ‘willingness to renounce her citizenship in both the United Kingdom and France’ is little more than window dressing,” a trio of assistant U.S. attorneys wrote to Judge Alison Nathan.
Part of the problem is that it’s a moot point: Maxwell committed the alleged crimes while a citizen of France.
The French Ministry of Justice was contacted by its American counterpart to get a legal opinion from a country that categorically refuses to “deport its own citizens for crimes they have committed.”
France said the socialite’s “offer to waive her French citizenship will not make her eligible to be extradited from France because, for purposes of extradition, nationality is assessed as of the time the charged offence was committed.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Even if Maxwell renounced her citizenship, she would still be considered French and not subject to deportation.
Meanwhile, her older brother is painting Ghislaine’s incarceration as akin to being caged at Alcatraz or Guantanamo Bay.
Since she’s been caged, her handful of high-flying supporters have unleashed a torrent of complaints about jail conditions and her fundamental goodness.
“No human being should have to go through what she’s been put through,” her brother Ian Maxwell told the BBC. “It is really degrading … this is not the way that a democratic country should be running its prison system. It’s grotesque and in that respect it amounts to torture.”
He added: “I am worried about Ghislaine’s capacity to endure much more of this treatment.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
And like many others, he blames the tabloid press for portraying Ghislaine as a sex-crazed monster.
Ghislaine Maxwell has denied any involvement in grooming minors for sex with her former boyfriend and sugar daddy Epstein.
But she remains resolute despite the government’s “grotesque overreaction” to the Epstein episode, her brother said.
Ian said the siblings had drifted apart and he only met Epstein once.
“I wish she’d never met the man, obviously it goes without saying,” he told the BBC.
Ghislaine Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.
@HunterTOSun
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.