British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell should spend at least 30 years in prison for her role in the sexual abuse of teenage girls over 10 years by her onetime boyfriend, financier Jeffrey Epstein, US prosecutors said on Wednesday in written arguments.
Prosecutors said that Maxwell should serve 30 to 55 years in prison, reflecting federal sentencing guidelines.
They made their recommendations to the judge who is to preside over a sentencing hearing on Tuesday next week in the federal court in Manhattan, New York.
The 60-year-old Maxwell was convicted in December last year of sex trafficking and other crimes after a month-long trial that featured testimony from four women who said they were abused in their teens.
Defense lawyers said in a sentencing submission last week that she should spend no more than five years in prison and should not pay for Epstein’s crimes, as he was the mastermind and principal abuser, and “orchestrated the crimes for his personal gratification.”
Epstein died in 2019 in jail as he was awaiting a Manhattan federal sex trafficking trial.
However, prosecutors said that Maxwell played an “instrumental role in the horrific sexual abuse of multiple young teenage girls” between 1994 and 2004 at some of Epstein’s residences.
“As part of a disturbing agreement with Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell identified, groomed, and abused multiple victims, while she enjoyed a life of extraordinary luxury and privilege. In her wake, Maxwell left her victims permanently scarred with emotional and psychological injuries,” they wrote. “That damage can never be undone, but it can be accounted for in crafting a just sentence for Maxwell’s crimes.”
Prosecutors also urged the judge to reject Maxwell’s pleas for leniency on the grounds that she has suffered in extraordinary ways in jail while awaiting trial and afterward.
Defense lawyers said she has faced death threats and harsh conditions that have caused her to lose hair and weight.
Maxwell’s appearance at trial proved those claims were wrong, prosecutors said, adding: “The defendant is perfectly healthy, with a full head of hair.”
They said Maxwell “has enjoyed remarkable privileges as a high-profile inmate that vastly exceed the benefits accorded to the average inmate. It is unsurprising that a woman who had led a life of incredible luxury should complain about her life as a prisoner, but that fact does not come close to meriting leniency at sentencing, much less the extraordinary degree of leniency the defendant seeks.”
Prosecutors also attacked claims by Maxwell’s lawyers that she suffered “a credible death threat” in jail, saying that an internal probe of the purported threat revealed that an inmate remarked to someone in passing something to the effect of: “I’d kill her if someone paid me a million dollars.”
As a result, someone who overheard the remark reported it and the inmate was moved from the housing unit, they said.
They also cited what they described as Maxwell’s “complete failure to address her offense conduct and her utter lack of remorse.”
“Instead of showing even a hint of acceptance of responsibility, the defendant makes a desperate attempt to cast blame wherever else she can,” they wrote.
“The defendant’s access to wealth enabled her to present herself as a supposedly respectable member of society who rubbed shoulders with royalty, presidents, and celebrities,” they wrote. “That same wealth dazzled the girls from struggling families who became the defendant and Epstein’s victims.”
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