Day Six: Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
Day Six: Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
Dispatches from the Maxwell Trial
Yesterday saw a major turning point in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial in that the government scored some major—quite possibly critical—points for the prosecution.
First, the morning contained the direct testimony and cross-examination of a British-born woman going under the pseudonym “Kate.”
Kate is a staggeringly beautiful blonde in her 40s who is famous in London both as a model and woman-around-town. (She currently lives in L.A.) In the past, she has modeled for a lingerie company, but, yesterday, she looked so demure that the reporter sitting next to me quipped, “She dressed for the Salem witch trials.”
He wasn’t wrong. Her clothes resembled those of a nun’s—if nuns wore Chanel, that is. Kate wore a high-buttoned shirt, black cardigan, black pleated skirt that twirled around her calves, black tights, and demure black low-heeled pumps; her hair was twisted into a neat bun.
Kate said that, when she first met Maxwell, she had just been offered a place at Oxford University, and her fierce, quick intelligence was evident from the start of her testimony.
The narrative Kate told about meeting Maxwell in Paris and then soon after meeting Maxwell’s “boyfriend” Jeffrey Epstein in London at Maxwell’s house there—and having a sexual encounter with him on just their second meeting—was stomach-churning.
Kate testified that Maxwell had phoned and said that Epstein was supposed to have a massage but the massage therapist had canceled, so could Kate come over and do it. Kate lived nearby and had not been a massage therapist but agreed to go. Maxwell led her into a dimly lit room with a massage table where a robed Epstein was waiting. Epstein dropped his robe. Maxwell, Kate said, stood in the door of the designated “massage room;” she saw that Epstein was naked —and then, having handed Kate some massage oil, just shut the door behind her. It was during that massage that Epstein “initiate[d] sexual contact,” as AUSA Lara Pomerantz put it. The jury was spared the graphic details.
Unlike “Jane,” the first accuser, who described meeting Epstein and Maxwell together, the story Kate told made it clear that it was Maxwell who pushed the introduction between Epstein and Kate.
Kate said that Maxwell asked her after her sexual encounter with Epstein: “Did you have fun?”
The defense clearly wanted jurors to believe that, yes, Kate did have “fun.” She was legally of age during these encounters, she has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and she was involved in a rather infamous “situation” (as Maxwell attorney Bobbi Sternheim deemed it) in the late '90s involving drugs, a man connected to the Royal family, and a really scurrilous British tabloid. This was why, the defense wanted jurors to believe, that approximately 15 years after their initial encounter, Kate was still emailing Epstein in 2011 and 2012, at one point asking if she could stay with him in New York.
Even so, Maxwell’s role, as described by Kate, explains to me why Maxwell’s friends told me they hated Epstein and his influence on Maxwell. How many women do you know who think that the way to hold onto their boyfriend/partner is to get somebody else to have some sort of sex with them? Maxwell told Kate that Epstein needed sex three times a day—and Maxwell just couldn’t do it.
In the afternoon, we heard testimony from J.P. Morgan Executive Director Patrick McHugh, who took so long to painstakingly answer the most basic question about the bank statements that showed that Epstein had paid accounts in Maxwell’s name up to $30 million that you knew all he was thinking was “Please, please can I just not be fired because of my testimony.”
Then, the FBI was called—and the jury noticeably perked up.
Special agent Kelly Maguire—assigned to C20, the child human trafficking tast force—was exactly the kind of agent TV shows get modeled after. A brunettish version of the late Princess Diana, she didn’t so much walk into the courtroom as do a strut, shoulders back, speedwalking; she was ready to go.
And go she did. She explained how on July 6, 2019, she had been responsible for seizing evidence in Epstein’s New York Mansion.
Jeffrey Epstein's residence at 9 East 71st Street in the Manhattan borough of New York on July 18, 2019 in New York City. || Scott Heins / Getty
We got to see photos of all his binders of “CDs,” which you know you want to know about but really don’t want to actually see the contents of.
She was followed by Kimberly Meder, also of the FBI, another brunette one could base a TV show around. She’s an analyst on the FBI’s child exploitation and human trafficking squad whose job includes helping to review evidence from hard drives and such.
More from her later today.
The real turning point came after the clock struck 5pm and the jurors had left. The defense and the government came as close to a real spat as I’ve yet seen.
The topic of debate was photographs found on the CDs recovered by Special Agent Maguire and analyzed by Meder.
According to what was said, the CDs show not just Epstein and Maxwell together over the years but also contain pictures of a topless Virginia Roberts and a photograph of Kate.
Defense attorney Laura Menninger argued, in vain, that photos recovered in 2019 had no relevance to an indictment that ends in 2004. Further, she argued, the photos were not authenticated—and she had wanted to ask Kate about nude photographs during her cross-examination and that she’d wanted to show—or have Bobbi Sternheim show—them but that the government had shut that down in pre-trial deliberations and had accused her of “slut-shaming.” Menninger almost spat the words.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe impressively hung tough and said that the defense has tried to separate Maxwell from Epstein throughout this trial—and the pictures irrefutably put them together over a number of years.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pose with Donald and Melania Trump at Mar-a-lago on February 12, 2000. || Davidoff Studios Photography /Getty
“Your Honor, throughout this trial, the defense has repeatedly tried to distance Ms. Maxwell from Mr. Epstein and his affairs and argue that things were compartmentalized. I believe in the cross examination of some witnesses, they repeatedly suggested that she was only a personal assistant,” Moe argued. “These photographs show their close relationship throughout time and are directly relevant. There is nothing cumulative about that. In fact, it speaks directly to one of the issues at the heart of this case, and for that reason, these photographs are certainly relevant.”
Judge Nathan ruled in favor of the prosecution. And you could see that the defense lawyers were dismayed. In a very rare show of emotion, Ghislaine Maxwell’s brow was furrowed.
Today is going to be super interesting. If ever the adage about pictures saying more than words could be proven true—well, tomorrow is that test.
UPDATE 12/7/21 @ 1:15pm: Yesterday, Judge Nathan had ruled in favor of the prosecution on everything except the photograph of Kate. This morning, the judge ruled with the defense and no photo of Kate was produced.
