By David Rosen
July 08, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - Since Jeffrey Epstein was
found dead in a jail cell at the Metropolitan
Correctional Center on August 10, 2019, many wondered
what happened to Ghislaine Maxwell. “I’ve heard she’s in
Brazil, I’ve heard she’s in France, I’ve heard she’s in
California,” Lisa Bryant, director of the Netflix
docuseries Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, “Who knows
where she is, really?” Some wondered if she would suffer
the same fates as Epstein and her father, Robert Maxwell
– death.
Well, all mystery ended on the morning of July 2, 2020,
when FBI agents arrested her without incident at her
estate in Bradford, NH. Later in the day, Maxwell
appeared online before a federal magistrate and waived
her right to a detention hearing in New Hampshire,
clearing the way for her transfer to New York City. The
charge sheet claims that from 1994 to ‘97, she was among
Epstein’s closest associates and was also involved in an
“intimate relationship” with him.
Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss (who replaced fired
Attorney Geoffrey Berman who had been investigating
Epstein) said, “She [Maxwell] pretended to be a woman
they could trust.” Adding, “Today, after many years,
Ghislaine Maxwell finally stands charged for her role in
these crimes.”
The feds charged her with having “assisted, facilitated,
and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor
girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to
recruit, groom and ultimately abuse victims known to
Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18”. She is
also charged with conspiracy to entice minors to travel
to engage in illegal sex acts; and transporting a minor
with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
The indictment claims Maxwell groomed at least three
minor girls to engage in sex acts with Epstein.
(Virginia Roberts Giuffre brought a defamation suit
against Maxwell in 2015.) She allegedly befriended them
by expressing concern about their lives and families,
and then took them to the movies and shopping. According
to the indictment, Maxwell would “try to normalise
sexual abuse for a minor victim by… discussing sexual
topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present
when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present
for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein.” In
addition, she faces two counts of perjury for having
“repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct,
including in relation to some of the minor victims.”
***
The popular media is having a field day covering
Maxwell’s arrest, but will the coverage go any deeper
than the obvious gossipy sex story? There are two
aspects of the Maxwell case that has received little
attention – (i) her relation to and/or knowledge about
the role of public personalities in the Epstein affair;
and (ii) the mysteries surrounding the deaths of Epstein
and her father, Robert Maxwell.
Maxwell’s arrest and transfer to New York for
prosecution sets the stage for a revealing investigation
and trial. The long saga of Epstein’s criminal
activities has been well documented including his
dubious conviction deal with former Sec. of Labor
Alexander Acosta and her “friendships” with such public
figures as Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Alan
Dershowitz, Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen and Larry Summers,
among others.
Before his mysteriously death, Epstein was scheduled for
prosecution at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan then
supervised by Attorney Berman. Pres. Donald Trump,
through Attorney General Bill Barr, fired Berman in a
likely effort to short-circuit ongoing investigations
into some of Trump cronies, notably Rudy Giuliani. While
Trump had a long-documented association with Epstein, he
(and Barr’s Justice Dept.) may likely pursue a vigorous
investigation of Maxwell for the information and proof
she might have about Clinton, Summers and other
Democrats. All of which could provide fodder for his
presidential re-election campaign.
Often overlooked in considering Maxwell’s arrest are the
mysterious deaths of Epstein and her father, Robert
Maxwell. The popular or official story has it that
Epstein committed suicide by hanging in his federal jail
cell and that Maxwell pčre accidentally fell off his
yacht and drowned offshore of the Canary Islands in
November 1991. Both deaths have raised serious
questions.
The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office ruled
Epstein’s death a suicide. However, Epstein’s brother,
Mark, retained Dr. Michael Baden, a noted forensic
pathologist, to conduct an independent autopsy.
Following a four-hour procedure, Baden found Epstein had
unusual fractures to his neck and that his death was
more likely due to murder than suicide. Ongoing stories
about Epstein’s possible murder persist, but no further
legal action has taken place.
Mysteries associated with Robert Maxwell are even more
confusing. The Guardian begins an article on Maxwell and
his death as follows: “Was it murder? Suicide? Or just
an accident?” This former media mogul controlled the
Mirror newspaper group and Macmillan publishing, among
other assets. However, in 1991, nearly $1 billion was
reported missing from the Macmillan pension fund. As the
story goes, one night while cruising on his yacht, the
Lady Ghislaine, Maxwell went to take a piss, fell
overboard and drowned. He received a near-state funeral
in Israel, attended by the prime minister, Yitzhak
Shamir, and the president, Chaim Herzog, and buried in
Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.
The Maxwell story gets more intriguing when his
background as a Mossad intelligence agent is added to
the mix. He had a long career that including fighting in
the anti-Nazi underground during WW-II and work with
British and Israel intelligence services in the postwar
decades. He is reputed to have, in 1986, tipped off the
Israeli embassy in London that Mordechai Vanunu, the
nuclear scientist later jailed for 18 years in Israel,
had given information about Israel’s nuclear capability
to the British. He is also rumored to have helped the
Mossad steal intelligence-gathering software from the
U.S. and then sold it to Canada, the old USSR, Zimbabwe
and Guatemala, among other countries. Maxwell’s exploits
also include the reputed attempt to involve Israel in a
1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Who knows?
Thomas Gordon and Martin Dillon, authors of Robert
Maxwell, Israel’s Superspy: The Life and Murder of a
Media Mogul, claim that Mossad “whacked” Maxwell because
he tried to extort money from them to get out of debt.
Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe, author of Epstein: Dead Men
Tell No Tales, advances the unsubstantiated claim that
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were Israeli spies. As the
story goes, they ran what was known as a “honey-trap”
provide young girls to politicians in order to blackmail
them and get information for the Israelis.
With Ghislaine Maxwell now in custody in New York, one
can only wonder how deep or rigorous the federal
prosecutor will be the case. Will she mysteriously
commit suicide while in federal custody? Will she suffer
a mere slap-on-the-wrist similar to that faced by
Epstein in his 2008 sex trafficking case? Or will she be
turned into a slew of daily media headlines, just one
more pawn in Trump’s re-election campaign? Or will the
American public final learn something truthful about the
goings on about the rich and powerful that normally goes
on behind drawn curtains? Time will tell.
David Rosen is the author of Sex, Sin &
Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s
Forbidden into America’s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015).
He can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net;
check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com.
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