JP Morgan Official Says Epstein Kept Maxwell Flush with a Vast Fortune Others Could Only Dream Of
Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal strategy in her sex trafficking case could be described as a #MeToo defense: Sure, Jeffrey Epstein had plenty of victims, and she was one of the first.
Though she’s now on trial in federal court on a slew of charges related to facilitating Epstein’s sexual relations with underage females, her defense is apparently trying to suggest different picture:
She wasn’t a procurer or a pimp, but merely someone who got caught up in the machinations of the world’s most infamous degenerate. And, according to the New York Post, the defense argues Maxwell is simply being targeted because Epstein is no longer alive to prosecute.
If that’s the case, her defense team will have to explain why she was one very well-remunerated victim.
In testimony Monday, according to Just the News, a banker with JP Morgan said that Epstein wired over $30 million to Ghislaine Maxwell over a period of eight years. Some of that money may have been spent on a private helicopter and a townhouse worth nearly $5 million, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
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According to the Daily Mail, JPMorgan Chase executive director Patrick McHugh told the court that $30.7 million was transferred from Epstein to Maxwell between 1999 and 2007.
Prosecutors also introduced documentation to back up the testimony, the paper reported.
“A bank statement from August 1999 showed the Financial Trust Company, a company Epstein controlled, selling $18.3 million of shares which were transferred the same day into a bank account owned by Maxwell,” the Daily Mail’s Daniel Bates reported.
“The reason for the transfer was unclear, but in October 2000 Maxwell paid $4.9 million for a townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”
A further $5 million was transferred into Maxwell’s account in September of 2002, again from selling off shares.
The final transfer took place in June of 2007, the Daily Mail reported. In that transfer, $7.6 million was wired from one of Epstein’s bank accounts to Maxwell — who transferred it to a company she controlled called Air Ghislaine, and then wired money to helicopter-maker Sikorsky for one of its S76C aircraft and a “down payment on executive finish,” according to the Daily Mail.
Maxwell’s lawyers countered by arguing such transfers were normal for someone with Epstein’s wealth.
“Isn’t it true that high-net-worth individuals like this have lots of assets?” said Maxwell lawyer Christian Everdell, according to the Daily Mail.
“They could,” McHugh responded, adding that transferring the money didn’t necessarily indicate illegal behavior.
Still, the transfers weren’t a good look on a bad day in court for Maxwell.
Earlier, the Daily Mail reported, a witness using the pseudonym “Kate” said she had been introduced to Epstein by Maxwell when she was 17. She told the court that when she visited Maxwell’s townhouse in London, she found Epstein dressed in a robe. Maxwell said his massage therapist had canceled and asked her to substitute. Furing the massage, she alleged, Epstein began to make sexual contact.
She said that after the massage, Maxwell said, “How did it go? Did you have fun? You’re such a good girl.”
“She sounded really pleased, and I was pleased that she was pleased,” the witness said, according to the Daily Mail.
While “Kate” was over the age of consent and isn’t part of the charges against Maxwell, her testimony demonstrates a pattern — and it also raises new questions about the relationship between Epstein and Maxwell.
“There are no indications that Ghislaine directly helped Epstein with financial matters. Instead, Maxwell, who grew up in British high society and graduated from Oxford University, introduced Epstein to the global elite, including politicians and royalty,” noted Patricia Hurtado and Sophie Alexander in a Bloomberg piece about Maxwell when she was arrested last summer
Maxwell’s father was the powerful British publisher Robert Maxwell, whose death in 1991 set off a series of revelations that “his wealth was an illusion: He had diverted hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies’ pension funds to prop up his empire,” as NBC reported in November.
Hurtado and Alexander noted that Maxwell’s lawyers are suggesting that Maxwell is “less wealthy than many believe.”
“After arriving in New York in the wake of her father’s death and ensuing scandal, she grew tight with Epstein in the 1990s,” they wrote. “They were initially romantically involved, but remained close, and Epstein called Maxwell his ‘best friend’ in a 2003 Vanity Fair article. A trained helicopter pilot, she even transported him to his private island.”
Maxwell’s wealth and where she got it are in question, as well. As the Bloomberg report noted, she claimed to be worth less than $1 million at the time of her arrest, something prosecutors called “implausible.”
After all, she received over $30 million in transfers from Epstein alone, evidence he could have bought her silence or participation — or both.
A former housekeeper testified that she was “lady of the house” around Epstein’s mansion, producing a 58-page book of rules that was entered into evidence.
Even beyond that, Maxwell’s constant presence around the late financier and convicted sex offender was indicative of a relationship that goes far beyond being a simple victim.
If this is the tack Maxwell’s defense intends to take after she was the recipient of a vast fortune in just eight years of financial transfers from Epstein, her case is in trouble.
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