bitchy | Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to twenty years in prison for human trafficking

Just before the New Year, Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty on five out of six charges related to the sex trafficking she operated on Jeffrey Epstein’s behalf. I feel it’s my duty to remind everyone that Maxwell was abusing those girls too – often, she would physically and emotionally abuse them first to groom them for Epstein and the other predators. It’s taken this long to get her sentenced, although she’s been in custody, in jail, since her arrest in 2020. Last week, we heard that Maxwell’s lawyers were trying to make her sound like a victim too – a victim of a mean daddy. Her lawyers asked for the minimum sentence, while the prosecution asked for 30 years in prison. The judge ended up sentencing Ghislaine Maxwell to 20 years.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former socialite who conspired with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday by a judge who said she played a pivotal role in facilitating a horrific scheme that spanned continents and years.

“The damage done to these young girls was incalculable,” said Judge Alison J. Nathan of Federal District Court in Manhattan. The sentence was shorter than the government had recommended — federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked the judge to impose a sentence of at least 30 years. If the conviction is upheld, Ms. Maxwell, with time potentially credited for good behavior and the two years she has spent in jail, could leave prison in her 70s.

Ms. Maxwell spoke in court on Tuesday — her first public remarks since her July 2020 arrest. Standing at the lectern in blue prison scrubs, her ankles shackled, she acknowledged “the pain and the anguish” of the victimized women who had addressed the court. But she stopped short of apologizing or accepting responsibility for her crimes.

“It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Maxwell said. “Jeffrey Epstein should have been here before all of you.”

Before imposing the sentence, Judge Nathan said that “although Epstein was central to this criminal scheme, Ms. Maxwell is not being punished in place of Epstein or as a proxy.”

[From The NY Times]

Again, Maxwell abused the girls too. So many of those girls and women are haunted by how Ghislaine treated them, what she did to them, how easily she trafficked them to her friends. Ghislaine standing up in court and only expressing regret for “meeting Jeffrey Epstein” is too simplistic. And sure, we all wish that Epstein had lived to go to trial. But people had other ideas. Twenty years in prison is nothing to sniff at though – while she deserved 30 years, let’s also be honest: if she decides to name names, she won’t live much longer anyway.

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