Ghislaine Maxwell pleads not guilty as she fights for $5M bail

Ghislaine Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to the sex trafficking charges brought against her on Tuesday as she appeared in court via video where a judge set an anticipated trial date for next summer.

Maxwell is accused of grooming girls as young as 14 years old for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 1997, a period when she was his girlfriend.

The British socialite was dressed in a brown shirt on Tuesday afternoon, with her normally short hair in a bun, as U. S. District Judge Alison Nathan set an anticipated trial date for July 12, 2021.

Her legal team had offered a $5 million bond co-signed by two of her sisters and backed up more than $3.75 million in property in the UK.

The 58-year-old would be confined to a luxury hotel in the New York area, surrender all her travel documents and be subject to GPS monitoring.

She is currently being held in the fortress-like Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where she is wearing paper clothes to ensure she doesn't kill herself.

She faces up to 35 years in prison if found guilty of the charges, as prosecutors argue that along with her three passports, connections to some of the world's most powerful people and her own fortune of more than $10 million - Maxwell has every incentive to try and flee.

New York prosecutors said Maxwell was 'skilled at living in hiding' has 'few if any' community ties and therefore should be denied bail because she is the 'very definition of a flight risk'.

At the hearing, two victims also argued she was a flight risk, with one writing in a statement: 'Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey couldn’t have done what he did. She is a predator and a monster.'

Maxwell is being closely watched as the Department of Justice wants to ensure she does not kill herself like her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself last August while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Prosecutors argued against Maxwell being granted bail, citing that due to holding both French and British passports, she has the ability to 'live beyond the reach of extradition indefinitely'.

Prosecutor Allison Moe also claimed that when Maxwell bought her $1 million Bradford, New Hampshire home, she toured the home back in November of 2019 using the alias of Janet Marshall and claimed to the real estate agent that she worked as a journalist.

Moe also read out a victim statement from a woman identified as Jane Doe, who argued that she was a flight risk.

The victim said she knew Maxwell for 10 years and intended to 'deliver' her to Epstein, knowing the 'heinous dehumanization that awaited me'.

She described Maxwell as 'sociopathic' and would 'have done anything to get what she wanted - to satisfy Jeffrey Epstein'.

The woman claimed that Maxwell 'was in charge' and 'egged' Epstein on.

She added that 'if she is out, I need to be protected', citing a phone call she received in the middle of the night threatening her two-year-old child.

Victim Annie Farmer also spoke at the hearing, detailing how she met Maxwell when she was 16 years old. Farmer has previously gone on record with her claims against Maxwell.

She said Maxwell 'has never shown any remorse [and] tormented her survivors... She has associates across the globe, some of great means.'

Maxwell's attorney Mark Cohen argued she was not a flight risk, claiming she does have community ties and is 'part of a very large and close family'.

He said: 'Our client is not Jeffrey Epstein, and she has been the target of endless media spin.'

On Monday it was revealed she had refused to open the front door to the FBI when they raided her home and fled to another room in the house, 'quickly shutting a door behind her', according to prosecutors.

The FBI smashed down the door and discovered a mobile phone wrapped in tin foil which prosecutors called a 'seemingly misguided effort to evade detection' by law enforcement.

Officials said her conduct during the 8.30am raid on July 2nd at the property called 'Tuckedaway' in the rural town of Bradford, New Hampshire was 'troubling'.

They wrote that when the FBI arrived they were confronted by a locked gate which they forced their way through.

The filing said: 'As the agents approached the front door to the main house, they announced themselves as FBI agents and directed the defendant to open the door.

'Through a window, the agents saw the defendant ignore the direction to open the door and, instead, try to flee to another room in the house, quickly shutting a door behind her. Agents were ultimately forced to breach the door in order to enter the house to arrest the defendant, who was found in an interior room in the house.

'Moreover, as the agents conducted a security sweep of the house, they also noticed a cell phone wrapped in tin foil on top of... (Read more)

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