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Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for procuring teenage girls to be sexually abused by late financier Jeffrey Epstein after calling him a “manipulative, cunning and controlling man.”
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan handed down the stiff term after the British socialite’s lawyers asked for no more than five years.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted in December after a month-long trial of sex trafficking, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts and two conspiracy charges.
The jury found the Oxford graduate guilty of recruiting and grooming teenage girls for sexual encounters with her and Epstein between 1994 and 2004 at the late billionaire’s mansions and estates in Manhattan, New Mexico, Florida and the Virgin Islands.
Epstein, a convicted pedophile, killed himself at 66 in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on a sex trafficking indictment.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S CELLMATE CLAIMS SHE WAS ‘OFFERED MONEY’ TO KILL MAXWELL
Before the sentence was handed down, Maxwell walked to the podium and addressed the court blaming her one-time lover for her plight. “I believe that Jeffrey Epstein was a manipulative, cunning and controlling man who lived a profoundly compartmentalized life and filled all of those in his orbit,” said Maxwell, 60, who wore blue prison scrubs. “It is the greatest regret of my life that I met Jeffrey Epstein.”
Maxwell then turned and spoke directly to many of her victims who were seated in the gallery. “I am sorry for the pain that you’ve experienced,” she said. “I am sorry for the pain that you’ve experienced.” She added that she hoped her incarceration brought them a measure of closure.
A photo illustration of Ghislaine Maxwell attending National Urban Tech Center in 2014 in New York City and an image of her and Jeffrey Epstein.
(Photo by Jimi Celeste/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image)
Eight women submitted victim impact statements describing the sexual abuse they endured at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein.
Annie Farmer wrote in her victim impact statement that she had tried her best to keep the “dark memory” of what occurred locked away, describing the abuse she said she suffered at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein as a “sickening feeling that makes you want to disappear.”
She said that the long fight for justice has “felt like a black hole sucking in our precious time, energy and well-being” as she implored the judge to consider the appropriate prison sentence.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
