Ghislaine Maxwell was denied bail. Yes, this should not be news, but given what occured with the sweet heart deal that Jeffrey Epstein received, you cannot put anything past our justice system that caters to white wealthy people. And the legal arguments put forward by Maxwell’s lawyer sound like it came right out of one of the arraignment scenes from the old Law and Order TV series. But the judge wasn’t buying any of it, and she ruled that Maxwell was a serious flight risk.
Yeah, no shit.
The reason why Maxwell was not in the public eye for the last year is because she was literally in hiding. Maxwell was ducking answering any questions from the FBI or anyone investigating Jeffrey Epstein and her role in obtaining underage girls for his sexual pleasure. I thought she had fled the country, but the FBI says she was in the U.S. the whole time.
And I think that surprised the FBI and the government prosecutors because they listed all the lovely reasons why Maxwell would flee.
Prosecutors had urged the judge to order detention for Maxwell, saying her wealth -- with numerous bank accounts containing as much as $20 million, according to court filings; multiple foreign citizenships, including in France, which doesn't extradite its citizens; and skill at hiding made her an "extreme" risk of flight.
Emboldened is my doing.
Millions of dollars at her disposal. MULTIPLE foreign citizenships. How nice is that for a criminal, especially that French citizenship?
And it wasn’t like she was in plain sight either. Here is what Maxwell was busing doing during that year:
In court Tuesday, prosecutor Alison Moe laid out "serious red flags" and detailed what she described as
additional evidence of Maxwell's deception, saying Maxwell told a real estate agent involved in the sale of her New Hampshire estate -- where Maxwell was living when she was arrested July 2 -- that she was a journalist named Janet Marshall.
Only upon seeing Maxwell's photo in news reports following her arrest did the agent realize he had been duped, Moe told the court.
Oh, she paid one million in CASH for that house in NH. Cash. I know. To be able to carry around a million dollars in cash on you for purchases.
And her lawyers being lawyers made some wondeful legal arguments for her to be given bail.
Maxwell's attorneys asked the court to consider a bail package that would include home confinement, GPS tracking and a $5 million bond secured, in part, with a property in the United Kingdom, and on Tuesday her lawyer Mark Cohen told the judge that prosecutors had sought to portray her as "a ruthless, aimless, sinister person."
"She's not the monster that's been portrayed by the media and government," Cohen said.
He argued that preparing for trial with Maxwell in jail, particularly given the current restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, would be "just not realistic," adding that she has been held in the "equivalent of solitary confinement" and wasn't allowed to shower for 72 hours upon being transferred to the Brooklyn detention facility.
I hear Linda Ronstadt singing, “Poor, poor, pitiful me!”
And it gets better:
He dismissed concerns about her foreign citizenship, saying the United Kingdom and France are "not exactly exotic places." He explained that Maxwell's attempt to run into another room in her New Hampshire home when federal agents broke through her door wasn't an effort to escape them, as prosecutors alleged, but rather an attempt to follow the protocol set out by her private security.
And in response to prosecutors' claims that Maxwell hadn't provided a full accounting of her finances, Cohen said she had been unable to do so while jailed without access to certain information.
Poor, poor, poor me.
I hope she gets lice while in jail.