When FBI agents showed up at British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s secluded New Hampshire estate to arrest her, she ran to another room, forcing agents to break through the front door.
The British socialite, who was living on the property she bought via an anonymous limited liability company (LLC), had a cellphone wrapped in tin foil — apparently to avoid it being tracked. She also had round-the-clock security made up of former UK military personnel who fetched things for her using a credit card issued by the LLC.
Those are just some of the measures federal prosecutors say Maxwell, 58, took to hide from law enforcement when she was arrested July 2 on sex-trafficking charges linked to her association with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
In a court filing on Monday, the government cited those details in its fight to keep Maxwell locked up before her trial, saying that she had spent the past year “hiding” from law enforcement and has access to “extraordinary financial resources” that would allow her to flee the country is she was freed.
A federal judge was yesterday scheduled to consider whether to grant Maxwell’s request to be released from a Brooklyn, New York, lockup on US$5 million bond to live under house arrest until her trial.
Her defense team argued for her release, citing her long ties to the US, where she has lived to decades.
However, prosecutors on Monday reiterated that the daughter of British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell remains a high risk to flee the country to avoid prison.
“She has demonstrated her ability to evade detection, and the victims of the defendant’s crimes seek her detention,” the US said in its filing.
If she flees to France, where she also has citizenship, Maxwell would not be sent back to the US for trial because the country does not extradite its citizens to the US for prosecution.
Maxwell is accused of luring girls as young as 14 for sexual encounters with Epstein and engaging in some of the abuse.
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