Jury in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex abuse trial begin deliberations

The jury in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial began deliberations on Monday after hearing closing arguments over whether the British socialite set up teenage girls to have sexual encounters with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Ms Maxwell (59) is accused of recruiting and grooming four teenage girls for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004.

On trial for three weeks in federal court in Manhattan, she has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking and other crimes. Epstein killed himself in a jail cell in 2019 at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges.

Earlier on Monday, prosecutor Alison Moe said in her closing argument that Ms Maxwell was Epstein's "partner in crime". Jurors previously heard from four women who said Ms Maxwell groomed them for abuse by Epstein when they were teenagers. Three of the women said Ms Maxwell herself touched their bare breasts.

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Ms Moe argued that Ms Maxwell’s presence made young girls feel comfortable spending time with Epstein. Otherwise, receiving an invitation to be with a middle-aged man would have seemed “creepy” and “set off alarm bells”, Ms Moe said.

“Epstein could not have done this alone,” Ms Moe said. “When that man is accompanied by a posh, smiling, respectable, age-appropriate woman, that’s when everything starts to seem legitimate. And when that woman ... acts like it’s totally normal for that man to touch those girls, it lures them into a trap.”

Maxwell defence attorney Laura Menninger countered that Ms Maxwell was an "innocent woman" whom prosecutors had targeted because Epstein is no longer alive.

She argued that the women’s memories had been corrupted over the decades and said they were motivated by money to implicate Ms Maxwell. All four women said they received millions of dollars from a victims’ compensation fund established by Epstein’s estate.

The defence had repeatedly pressed the women during cross-examinations as to why they did not mention Maxwell during their initial conversations with law enforcement agents about Epstein.

“They all changed their stories when the Epstein victims’ compensation fund was opened up,” Ms Menninger told the jury.

“That should make you hesitate.” – Reuters