Chapter Thirty-Six Maxwell on Trial
Thirty-six
Maxwell on Trial
Months earlier, the lead prosecutors, Pomerantz and Maurene Comey, had broken the news to me that I would not be testifying because, essentially, I would be too big a distraction.
For example, if I were a witness, all the men that I had previously named as my abusers would likely be called by the defense as rebuttal witnesses, the prosecutors said.
They feared such theatrics would dilute jurors’ focus, taking the spotlight off Maxwell.
At its heart, prosecuting a case is about creating a clear narrative that jurors find easy to follow.
My narrative was complicated, if only because I’d named so many names.
The prosecutors acknowledged they wouldn’t have been able to build as strong a case against Maxwell without the discovery gathered in my prior defamation lawsuit (as I’ve said, Maxwell was charged separately with two counts of perjury that stemmed from her allegedly false testimony in her depositions in my case).
But they wanted to tell a straightforward story about Maxwell the groomer, the procurer, and the abuser.
I was very disappointed—I had been looking forward to doing my part to send Maxwell to prison.
While Siggy tried to console me that I had done my part already, being excluded from this proceeding felt unfair to me.
For one thing, I expected that many people would assume prosecutors shut me out because they didn’t believe me.
(Indeed, just four days before the start of Maxwell’s trial, Prince Andrew’s camp planted a story in The Telegraph that ran under this headline: “Virginia Giuffre’s Absence from Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Shows She Is ‘Not a Credible Witness,’ Says Duke’s Team.
”) But that couldn’t be helped. More worrisome to me was the possibility that by limiting their case to just four victims—none of whom had traveled outside the United States with Epstein, as I had—the prosecution might not win.
There had been much speculation that Maxwell’s lawyers would attempt an “empty chair” defense, arguing that Maxwell was being blamed for the actions of a man whose death prevented him from coming to court: Epstein.
I worried some jurors would be swayed by that strategy.
But now it was showtime. I tried to look at the bright side: had I been called to testify, I would’ve missed Christmas with my kids. Instead, I hunkered down in Perth, where I’d festooned the house with tinsel and ornaments, crossed my fingers, and prayed for justice.
—
“Jane,” a soap-opera actress, who testified under a pseudonym, told jurors that Maxwell strolled up to her in 1994, with Epstein trailing behind her, when she was a camper at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan.
Epstein and Maxwell were donors to the renowned summer camp and boarding school—Epstein even had a “scholarship lodge” named after him.
Jane’s father had died of leukemia a year before, and her family—who lived in Palm Beach—was short of money, she said.
Jane thought Maxwell and Epstein were married, so when they realized she lived in Florida and asked for her mother’s contact information, she gave it.
Later, when she was fourteen, she agreed to meet with Epstein and Maxwell in Palm Beach.
Thus began a yearslong cycle of sexual abuse in Florida, New York, and New Mexico; Jane recalled that Maxwell touched her breasts and Epstein made her touch his genitals, engage in group sex, and submit to “painful” abuse with a vibrator.
Jane remembered Epstein’s introducing her to Prince Andrew and confirmed that she’d been awarded $5 million by the Epstein Victims’ Fund, though she’d only received $2.
9 million of that. Asked about the long-term impacts of her experiences with Epstein and Maxwell, she answered with a question: “How do you navigate a healthy relationship with a broken compass? I didn’t know what real love was supposed to look like. ”
Two of Maxwell’s accusers—Dr. Annie Farmer, a licensed psychologist, and “Kate,” a British model and actress who also used a pseudonym—testified only after the judge instructed jurors that their description of alleged sexual conduct could not be used to convict Maxwell of the crimes charged.
That was because “Kate” was above the age of consent in the jurisdiction in which she had sexual contact with Epstein and Maxwell.
(She’d been seventeen at the time.) Annie had been sixteen when she was fondled by Maxwell at Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, where a sixteen-year-old is not considered a minor.
But both Annie and Kate were used by the prosecution to assert that Maxwell’s exploitation of vulnerable teenagers was part of a pattern.
Kate, for example, said that Maxwell groomed her for Epstein to abuse and that after she gave him sexual “massages,” Maxwell said, “You’re such a good girl. ”
The fourth minor victim was Carolyn, who used only her first name.
Carolyn described herself as a middle-school dropout who’d been sexually abused by her grandfather and said that I’d introduced her to Maxwell and Epstein in Palm Beach.
That testimony was a complete surprise to me.
Carolyn said the first time she went to El Brillo Way, I got undressed and told her to keep on her bra and underwear.
She said that after she and I spent forty-five minutes massaging Epstein, he turned over, and he and I had sex while she watched from a nearby couch.
I didn’t doubt her account—I’ve acknowledged that I’d been forced to recruit girls and said that I will always regret it.
But I am ashamed to say that I didn’t remember Carolyn’s name.
Carolyn testified that after her initial encounter with Epstein, she’d visited the Palm Beach house two or three times a week for a period of years.
She said she performed sexualized massages that were arranged by Maxwell, who was always in the house when Carolyn arrived.
Carolyn also told jurors that Maxwell saw her naked some thirty times in Epstein’s massage room.
Maxwell “felt my boobs and my hips and my buttocks and said that…I had a great body for Mr. Epstein and his friends,” Carolyn testified.
If I had to distill defense attorney Laura Menninger’s arguments into a single message, it would be this: the alleged victims had at times changed their stories, or gotten details wrong, so their memories couldn’t be trusted.
(I’d been similarly criticized so many times about mistakes I’d made that I’d lost count.) Menninger was particularly tough on Jane, saying in her summation, “Her lapses of memory pervade this case.” Jane had recalled seeing The Lion King during a period it wasn’t on Broadway and attending the late journalist Mike Wallace’s eightieth birthday party at a point in the chronology that didn’t match his age.
But Maxwell’s own memory expert had testified that while peripheral memories tended to erode over time, core memories about trauma tended to stick.
Maurene Comey, one of the prosecutors, countered Menninger’s critique by posing a question to the jury: “Ladies and gentlemen, which would stand out more in your mind: how old you were on Mike Wallace’s birthday or how old you were the first time a middle-aged man molested you? ”
The defense also implied that the four accusers—all who had received payouts from the Epstein Victims’ Fund—were incentivized to exaggerate because they’d benefited financially from the Epstein “money train.” Menninger said their stories showed the influence of “memory, manipulation, and money.” But Comey noted that the checks the women had accepted in their settlements with Epstein’s estate had already cleared when they took the stand.
That meant that they had nothing more to gain financially from the grim experience of reliving trauma (and risking prosecution if they testified falsely).
“Did that look fun?” Comey asked jurors, referring to the victims’ sometimes tearful testimony.
“Why would they put themselves through that, when they’ve already gotten millions of dollars? ”
In the end, while Maxwell’s lawyers had said they would call thirty-five witnesses, they called only seven, in part because the judge forbade them from letting witnesses testify anonymously.
Maxwell opted not to testify on her own behalf.
By contrast, while I would have loved to have testified, I was not entirely absent.
I saw one report that estimated my name had been mentioned 250 times during the trial.
I guess that’s the next best thing to being there?
On December 20, when both sides delivered closing arguments, Comey called Maxwell a sophisticated predator who caused “deep and lasting harm to young girls” and was “crucial” to Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
She noted that three of the witnesses said Maxwell had touched their breasts.
“It happened again and again,” she said.
Menninger, meanwhile, argued Maxwell’s innocence by posing a question: “Why would a proper Oxford-educated woman do this?”
The verdict came in on the afternoon of the jury’s fifth full day of deliberations.
Just after 5:00 p.m. on December 29, the judge read it aloud.
Maxwell was guilty of sex trafficking and four other charges; she was acquitted of one count of enticing a minor to travel across state lines to engage in an illegal sexual act.
It was just after 5:00 a.m. in Perth, and I was asleep in our bedroom, but Robbie was downstairs in the kitchen, wide awake.
Like me, he’d been sleeping very little.
When he saw the news, he bounded upstairs and burst into our room.
“Guilty, baby!” he was screaming, and I opened my eyes to see him running around the room in circles. “She’s guilty!”
Soon I got on a Zoom with Siggy, who was beaming.
“Home run! All the counts but one!” she said joyfully.
But then her face turned serious. “She is going to prison for a very, very long time, Virginia, and all of that has to do with you. You started this, sweetheart. You did everything to keep it going. There’s no way this could have happened without your bravery and your commitment.
That is heroic—and I watched you go through it.
It was a horrible, difficult job, and you did it.
And you took some serious hits along the way.
I’m so incredibly proud of you right now. ”
After a strong cup of Italian coffee made the way Robbie’s parents taught me to make it, I soon took to Twitter to say the verdict had been cathartic for me.
“My soul yearned for justice for years and today the jury gave me just that,” I wrote.
“I will remember this day always. Having lived with the horrors of Maxwell’s abuse, my heart goes out to the many other girls and young women who suffered at her hands and whose lives she destroyed.
I hope that today is not the end but rather another step in justice being served.
Maxwell did not act alone. Others must be held accountable. I have faith that they will be.”