Sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell will stand trial for perjury for allegedly lying under oath during a 2016 defamation case brought forward by accuser Virginia Giuffre.
The British former socialite – found guilty in late December of procuring young women for partner Jeffrey Epstein – has yet to answer to claims she lied to investigators about her involvement with the infamous sex fiend.
Maxwell’s sex trafficking case dominated national headlines last month and ended with five convictions related to her role in a scandal alleged to involve high-profile political figures, billionaires, and at least one member of the British royal family.
She faces up to 65 years in prison, but more time could be tacked onto her sentence after her perjury charges are tried. Manhattan federal Judge Alison Nathan on Monday asked attorneys to submit schedule proposals for the hearing, the New York Post reported.
Those charges, filed in 2020, are related to a now-settled defamation lawsuit brought forward by Giuffre. Her lawyers later released a trove of documents they claimed prove Maxwell lied to investigators during the deposition.
The legal team has said it can disprove everything Maxwell, 60, said with flight manifests and photographs.
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, pictured in a November 30 sketch, will now stand trial for perjury charges related to a 2016 sworn deposition
The deposition was part of a defamation lawsuit filed by accuser Virginia Giuffre (center), who claims she was victimized by Prince Andrew (left) and that Maxwell (right) helped orchestrate the abuse
Maxwell claimed under oath to have only visited Epstein’s Palm Beach Home ‘once’ in 2005, but flight logs showed she flew there at least 11 times, Giuffre’s lawyers said.
Maxwell told lawyers that she never remembered being on Epstein’s private plane with Giuffre, but a flight manifest shows the pair flew together at least 23 times when Virginia was underage, according to Giuffre’s legal team.
She also claimed she didn’t remember Giuffre being in London with her, despite a photograph that shows the together with Prince Andrew in Maxwell’s home during a 2001 trip.
Giuffre, now a 38-year-old mother-of-three, sued the Duke in federal court in New York last July for infliction of emotional distress and battery.
She claims she was forced to have sex with the Duke three times in 2001 at Epstein’s command when she was 17.
Andrew strongly denies her claims and has said she is after ‘another payday at his expense’.
He’s hopeful that a newly-unsealed settlement signed by Giuffre – which shows Epstein paid her $500,000 to resolve the sex abuse case against him – will lead to the dismissal of the sexual lawsuit against him.
Andrew’s lawyers have claimed the agreement would prevent Giuffre from continuing the battery lawsuit she filed against him in 2020 because it absolved him of liability for future cases.
Maxwell (pictured with Epstein and Michael Bolton) claimed in the deposition that she only visited Epstein’s Palm Beach Home ‘once’ and that she never remembered being on Epstein’s private plane with Giuffre
In the 12-page agreement Giuffre agreed to release Epstein’s ‘agent(s), attorney(s), predecessor(s), successor(s), heir(s), administrator(s), assign(s) and/or employee(s)’.
Giuffre also agreed to release ‘any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant (‘Other Potential Defendants’) from all, and all manner of, action and actions of Virginia Roberts, including State or Federal, cause and causes of action (common law or statutory), suits…and demands whatsoever in law or inequity for compensatory or punitive damages’.
In his response to Giuffre’s allegations, the Duke’s lawyer Andrew Brettler argued that since Andrew was identified as ‘royalty’ in her complaint against Epstein, it meant he qualified as somebody covered in the settlement.
Brettler was referring to the fact that Giuffre claimed she was ‘required to be sexually exploited by [Epstein’s] adult male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen, and/or other professional and personal acquaintances’.
Maxwell (pictured with Epstein) faces up to 65 years in prison, but more time could be tacked onto her sentence after her perjury charges are tried
She is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, which she has described as a ‘hell hole’
Virginia Giuffre is pictured with her attorneys during a 2019 news conference. Maxwell’s perjury charges are related to testimony she gave during a now-settled defamation suit filed against Giuffre, now 38
Brettler argued that Giuffre dismissed a claim of battery against the lawyer Alan Dershowitz after he raised the same agreement, so she should do the same for the case against Andrew.
As she awaits sentencing in a prison she’s described as a ‘hell hole,’ a judge approved last week Maxwell’s request to get a Covid-19 booster shot
Attorney Bobbi Sternheim asked Judge Alison Nathan if it was possible for her client to get the vaccine, and the judge said it was available at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where she is being held.
The former socialite has spent more than 500 days in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn although she will likely spend the rest of her life in federal prison in the United States after she is sentenced.
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