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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not