Ghislaine Maxwell has been denied bail for a third time after a judge said there was ‘considerable doubt as to her willingness’ to obey any conditions of release.
Judge Alison Nathan wrote that she had ‘significant concern’ about the candor of the British socialite despite a PR push by her family to get her out.
Judge Nathan said that the ‘the history and characteristics’ of Maxwell support the conclusion that she ‘poses a risk of flight’.
In a 12-page ruling she said that ‘no combination’ of bail conditions could ensure that Maxwell will attend court for allegations she was Jeffrey Epstein’s chief recruiter.
The ruling will be crushing for Maxwell, 59, who now appears set to remain in jail until her trial in July.
Ghislaine Maxwell has been denied bail for a third time after a judge said there was ‘considerable doubt as to her willingness’ to obey any conditions of release. Pictured: Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein in 2005. She is accused of procuring underage girls for the pedophile
Ghislaine Maxwell has been denied bail for a third time after a judge said there was ‘considerable doubt as to her willingness’ to obey any conditions of release. Pictured: A court sketch shows Maxwell at her arraignment hearing on July 14, 2020
She filed dozens of documents for her third attempt at bail and offered to give up her British and French citizenship.
She also offered to put all the money and assets she owns into an account supervised by an asset manager.
Judge Alison Nathan wrote that she had ‘significant concern’ about the candor of the British socialite despite a PR push by her family to get her out
On the issue of renouncing Maxwell’s citizenship, Judge Nathan wrote: ‘Considerable uncertainty regarding the enforceability and practical impact of the renunciations cloud whatever relevance they might otherwise have to the Court’s assessment of whether the defendant poses a risk of flight.
Maxwell’s brother Ian carried out a series of media interviews decrying her conditions inside prison in Brooklyn, New York, where she is supposedly losing her hair due to the poor diet.
In the ruling, Judge Nathan, who sits at the federal court in New York, said that despite Maxwell’s extensive pleadings, nothing had changed her mind from when she rejected her second bail application.
Judge Nathan wrote: ‘The new bail package does not disturb the court’s conclusion that the government has carried its burden of showing that these conditions are insufficient to mitigate the flight risks, and the court again determines that no set of conditions can reasonably assure her future appearance’.
Judge Nathan’s sharpest criticisms were about Maxwell’s alleged lies to pretrial services about the size of her assets.
In Maxwell’s third bail application her lawyers offered to give up her British citizenship ‘immediately’ and her French citizenship as soon as she could to make it impossible for her to flee the US. Maxwell is pictured with Epstein
Ghislaine Maxwell, far right, is pictured with Prince Andrew and accuser Virginia Roberts in her townhouse in London. Roberts has filed a criminal lawsuit claiming that she had under-aged sex with Prince Andrew and pedophile Epstein
Her first bail package, she claimed her only assets were a few million dollars but her second bail application included $28.5m in assets.
Judge Nathan wrote: ‘The presumption in favor of detention, the weight of the evidence, and the history and characteristics of the defendant all continue to support that conclusion. The defendant’s proposed conditions do not alter the court’s determination’.
The judge said that even without her passports Maxwell ‘continues to have substantial international ties, familial and personal connections abroad, substantial financial resources, and experience evading detection’.
She wrote: ‘The court’s concerns regarding the defendant’s lack of candor regarding her assets when she was first arrested have also stayed the same.
‘As the Court emphasized in its denial of the second motion for release on bail, the discrepancies between the information presented to the Court and to Pretrial Services in July 2020 and the information presented to the Court in December 2020 raised significant concerns about candor’.
The ruling added that ‘there remains considerable doubt as to the Defendant’s willingness to abide by any set of conditions of release’.
In Maxwell’s third bail application her lawyers offered to give up her British citizenship ‘immediately’ and her French citizenship as soon as she could to make it impossible for her to flee the US.
Maxwell, has been in jail since her arrest on July 2 in Bradford, New Hampshire at her $1 million country home. Pictured: US Attorney for the Southern District Audrey Strauss announces the charges against Maxwell at a press conference
But Judge Nathan said that the law about extraditions was unclear and this was no guarantee that Maxwell wouldn’t be able to flee.
Maxwell’s lawyers had offered to put all assets she and her husband Scott Borgerson own into a new account to be overseen by an asset manager.
The account would contain all of the couple’s cash and liquid assets and anything from the ‘pending sale’ of her $2m home in London.
The only funds in the account would be money held in escrow for lawyers – her previous disclosures said she has $7.6m in legal retainers – and $450,000 for Mr Borgerson’s living expenses.
Judge Nathan said the amounts left under Maxwell’s control ‘represent a still-substantial amount that could easily facilitate flight’.
Maxwell, has been in jail since her arrest on July 2 in Bradford, New Hampshire at her $1 million country home.
She is accused of enticing girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse and in some cases taking part in the abuse.
Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, also perjured herself in a civil case.
She denies all the allegations.
