Jeffrey Epstein relationship details revealed in Ghislaine Maxwell unsealed court documents
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Court documents detailing Ghislaine Maxwell’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein have been unsealed and are now public.
They date from a 2016 deposition in a defamation lawsuit brough by Virginia Giuffre, who alleges Epstein sexually abused her as a teenager with help from Ms Maxwell.
The documents form part of US prosecutors’ case against the 58-year-old socialite, who is accused of - and denies - helping Epstein recruit and groom underage girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sexual acts in the mid-1990s, as well as perjury.
The documents show that Ms Maxwell was questioned persistently about whether she recruited underage girls to massage Epstein, or whether she saw them around his Palm Beach home.
She denied this was the case and the exchanges grew quite heated. Her lawyer, Jeffrey Pagliuci, batted away questions about whether she herself ever gave Epstein massages, telling her interrogator that consensual acts between adults were “frankly, none of your business”.
Maxwell explains her role in Epstein’s employ
“I hired assistants, I hired architects, I hired decorators, I hired cooks, I hired pool people. I hired pilots, I hired all sorts of people,” Ms Maxwell says.
She hired full-time staff, she says.
That didn’t include massage therapists in the sense of employing them. If she visited a spa and the massage was good she’d ask if they did home visits, she says, and “Jeffrey would then, in fact, hire them”.
Later in the exchange, she appears to imply (not for the first time) that she was unaware Virginia Giuffre was a minor when they encountered each other.
She is asked whether she ever referred a minor to Epstein for a massage. She says: “Virginia Roberts who you were referring to was a masseuse aged 17, we all now know, so your story that you keep pushing out to the press that she was a 15-year-old, you and I both know was a lie.”
She adds that she cannot recall meeting Ms Giuffre (Roberts) before the encounter previously described. (When she waited outside Epstein’s home with Ms Giuffre’s mother.)
‘You don’t know what’s up and what’s down’
Ms Maxwell is presented with an email she wrote in 2011 saying she met Ms Giuffre when she was working at “a premier resort claiming to be 18 years old and a professional masseuse”.
She is asked whether this “refreshes your recollection, that you recalled meeting Ms Roberts at Mar-a-Lago”.
She says: “It does not.” She adds: “When you read so much stuff and so much rubbish that comes out from Virginia Roberts, you don’t know what’s up and down. At the time I wrote this I believe I had a memory, but as I sit here today I do not.”
Maxwell denies providing costumes for Epstein's masseuse
Ms Maxwell denies having any idea if Ms Giufree was asked to dress up before giving massages to Epstein.
She is asked directly if she ever provided the outfits for Ms Giufree, which she denies, and then is asked if she ever gave Ms Giufree a school girl outfit to wear during her massage.
Later, she is asked if she provided Ms Giufree or other masseuse in Epstein's service with costumes like school girl outfits or "patent leather" outfits.
Again, Ms Maxwell denies.
"I wouldn't describe sex toys"
Ms Maxwell is asked about a "basket of sex toys" that she allegedly kept in her Palm Beach home.
She asks the interrogator to clarify what he means - and he responds "a laundry basket that contained sex toys in it."
Ms Maxwell says she does not recollect anything about a laundry basket of sex toys, and tells the interrogator to define what they are referencing.
"A sexy toy meaning a vibrator of some kind, sometimes they are called dildo, of that nature, anything like that?" the interrogator asks.
"I don't recollect anything that would formally be a dildo, anything like that," she replies.
"How would you describe sex toys?" the interrogator asks.
"I wouldn't describe sex toys," she responds.
The Big Blank
The interrogator presents Ms Maxwell with evidence titled "Exhibit 3," the details of which are entirely redacted.
Every word of the transcript is redacted for nearly three pages.
Following the long redaction, Ms Maxwell's lawyer objects to a presumed question asked by the interrogator on the basis of "form and foundation," which he has done many times throughout the deposition.
"First I have to read this," Ms Maxwell answers.
Her lawyer and Ms Giufree's lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, argue over whether the deposition timer should be stopped while Ms Maxwell is reading the documents. When they fail to reach an agreement, Ms McCawley sets the document aside and asks Ms Maxwell a question "independent of the document" about the sex toys.
Ms Maxwell reasserts that she did not recall having a basket of sex toys.
Maxwell denies participating in sex with Epstein and Giuffre
Ms Maxwell forcefully denies she had sex with Epstein and Ms Giuffre, calling the latter “an absolutel total liar”.
She also says she does not recall obtaining a mobile phone for Ms Giuffre to use “so that she could be on call regularly”.
She reiterates an earlier point that she was not constantly at Epstein’s Palm Beach home so could not observe the comings and goings there.
She adds: “What I can say is that I barely would remember her [Ms Giuffre], if not for all of this rubbish, except she did come from time to time but I don’t recollect her coming as often as she portrayed herself.”
Ms Maxwell says she has “no idea” about any arrangements between Ms Giuffre and Epstein, and that she does not recall seeing Ms Giuffre at the financier’s New York mansion.
Prince Andrew's name does not appear in heavily redacted deposition
Prince Andrew's name does not appear in the heavily-redacted Ghislaine Maxwell deposition transcripts that were released on Thursday, writes Graig Graziosi.
However, the documents do contain references to a trip that Ms Maxwell took to London which reference Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Prince Andrew at least three times in 2001. She alleges Prince Andrew had sex with her. Prince Andrew vehemently denies the allegations.
During the deposition, Ms Maxwell was asked if she remembers Ms Giuffre - named in the documents as Ms Roberts - visiting her home in London.
Ghislaine Maxwell deposition does not include Prince Andrew's name
The deposition appears to reference a photo of Prince Andrew and Ms Giuffre together in London
Extensive, fraught back-and-forth on police report about 30 underage girls
Ms Maxwell and Ms Giuffre’s lawyer have an extended back-and-forth discussion about a police report that is said to include testimony from 30 girls that they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein in Palm Beach.
It last for about four and a half pages.
Ms Maxwell says: "I can testify to having read these reports. I cannot testify to anything else about them.
“What I have already told you and I will repeat, I was in the house very limited times, very few times. I do not know what you are referring to.”
Maxwell says she "resents" accusation that she recruited girls for sex
The interrogator asks Ms Maxwell if she ever told anyone that she recruited women over the age of 18 to have sex with Epstein.
"Have you ever said to anybody that you recruit other females over the age of 18 to take the pressure off you to having to have sex with Jeffrey?" the interrogator asks.
Ms Maxwell appears indignant at the insinuation.
"I totally resent and find it disgusting that you use the word recruit. I already told you I don't know what you are saying about that and your implication is repulsive," she responds.
After being pressed, she insists she does not recruit anyone.
"First of all I resent and despise the word recruit. Would you like to define what you mean by recruit and by girls, you mean underage people. I never had to do anything with underage people. So why don't you reask the question in a way that I am able to answer it," she responded.
She later denies ever meeting an underage girl in London to introduce to Epstein for the purposes of giving him a massage.
Maxwell reveals she was making between $100,00 - $200,000 working for Epstein in 2001
Ms Maxwell tells her interrogator that during her time working for Epstein, which she says began in 1992, she could not recall how much she was making.
Later, she admits that in 2001, she was making more than $100,000 but less than $200,000 while in his employ.
She said that her pay increased "a little bit" during her time with Epstein.
When asked if Epstein was the sole source of her employment, Ms Maxwell's lawyer interrupts and advises her not to answer. When Ms Giuffre's lawyer pushes back, he tells her that defamation cases that are not entitled to punitive damages cannot ask for privileged financial information.
Ms Giuffre's lawyer disagrees and says they will return to that issue later.
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