Man Who Once Met Epstein Excused From Serving on Maxwell Jury

(Bloomberg) -- A man who said he once briefly met Jeffrey Epstein was excused from serving on the jury in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking case.

Identified in court only as Juror No. 280, the man described the encounter under questioning by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan on Thursday. The judge later dismissed him from the jury pool. 

“Someone who worked for me had put together an investment fund, an investment vehicle, and Jeffrey Epstein was one of the investors in it, he was one of the larger investors,” he said. “I was in an office and I ran into him in the hallway, it was 30 seconds.”  

But the man said the meeting piqued his interest in Epstein and caused him to follow news of the financier’s July 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges and apparent jail-cell suicide a month later.

“I think it probably caught my eye more than it would otherwise,” the potential juror said. Asked what he remembered reading about Epstein, he said, “Of him throwing a lot of parties for a lot of people where young or underage girls were present. He was accused of inappropriate and illegal behavior with underage women. I read about his death in jail and whether it was a suicide or not.”

Maxwell, whose trial is set to begin on Nov. 29, is accused of luring underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse them. The prospective juror said he had read articles describing her involvement in the case. 

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