Ghislaine Maxwell’s guilty verdict is likely not the last trial result she will face.
The 60-year-old will be in court again — probably next year — on charges that she lied under oath about boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of underage girls.
After the verdict Wednesday, in which the former British socialite was found guilty of five out of six sex-crime charges, she is already facing as many as 65 years in prison. Her lawyers have not said yet whether they will appeal.
But Maxwell requested those charges be tried separately from two perjury counts, and U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan agreed in April.
In the perjury case, prosecutors say Maxwell lied during a 2016 deposition taken as part of a defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre. While the suit was settled for an undisclosed amount, prosecutors used portions of Maxwell’s sworn testimony as a basis for the charges, saying she lied when asked about Epstein’s activities, denying knowledge of his recruitment and interactions with underage girls.
According to the deposition transcript, Maxwell was asked at least five different times if she believed that Epstein sexually abused minors. The socialite didn’t give a yes or no answer. The most she said was “You are asking me to speculate and I won’t speculate.”
‘A professional masseuse’
While Maxwell acknowledged hiring Giuffre as a 17-year-old massage therapist for Epstein at his Palm Beach estate, she denied knowledge of any sexual abuse.
“You can be a professional masseuse at 17 in Florida,” Maxwell said. “So as far as I am aware, a professional masseuse showed up for a massage. There is nothing inappropriate or incorrect about that.”
In his own deposition for the case, Epstein repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked whether Maxwell conspired with him.
The perjury counts each carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. No sentencing date has yet been set for Maxwell in the sex-trafficking case, and the judge could wait until both trials are complete.
Maxwell has been held in a federal jail in Brooklyn, New York, since her July 2020 arrest on sex-trafficking charges for allegedly conspiring with Epstein to provide him with underage girls so he could sexually assault them and also with participating in some of the abuse.
Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking in July 2019 but was found dead in his federal jail cell a month later in what authorities ruled was a suicide.
