Maxwell Faces Grim 60th as Jury Goes on Break Without Verdict
Maxwell Jury Asks for Testimony of House Manager, U.K. Accuser
(Bloomberg) -- Ghislaine Maxwell will mark her 60th birthday in jail.
The 12 jurors chosen for her sex-trafficking trial ended their second full day of deliberations without a verdict. The jurors opted not to meet on Thursday, so they will not reconvene again until Monday.
Maxwell turns 60 on Dec. 25.
Of course, the only way Maxwell wouldn’t have spent her 60th behind bars is if the jury had acquitted her on all charges before breaking for the holiday. She’s accused of luring and grooming underage girls for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein, her former boyfriend and employer. She faces as much as 40 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge in the current trial.
This will be her second birthday in the Brooklyn jail that has held her since shortly after her arrest in July 2020. She was denied bail as a flight risk due to her millions of dollars in assets and multiple passports.
The jury was excused around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday and will reconvene on Monday morning. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan asked jurors if they wanted to deliberate further on Thursday, which she had originally given them off. The panel sent her a note declining her offer, which Nathan read aloud at the end of court Wednesday.
“No, thank you,” the note read. “Jurors have made plans for tomorrow.”
In the only significant activity on Wednesday, jurors asked for transcripts of testimony from “Kate,” a British national who testified under a pseudonym Dec. 6 that Maxwell befriended her and later lured her into a sexual encounter with Epstein, and Juan Alessi, the house manager of the Palm Beach mansion the socialite shared with Epstein. Alessi took the stand on Dec. 2.
The request comes after several other requests Tuesday, including the testimony transcripts of three of Maxwell’s other accusers and an a memo.
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