Prosecutors Ask That Ghislaine Maxwell Spend at Least 30 Years in Jail

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, writing that Ghislaine Maxwell had made the selection to conspire with Jeffrey Epstein for years, “working as companions in crime and inflicting devastating hurt to weak victims,” requested a decide on Wednesday night time to condemn her to not less than 30 years in jail.

Ms. Maxwell, 60, is to be sentenced on Tuesday in Federal District Court docket in Manhattan. If the decide follows the federal government’s advice, she may spend a lot of the remainder of her life in jail.

Ms. Maxwell was convicted on Dec. 29 on 5 of the six counts she confronted, together with intercourse trafficking, after a monthlong trial wherein witnesses testified that she helped Mr. Epstein recruit, groom and abuse underage women.

Ms. Maxwell’s legal professionals, in a quick final week, requested the decide, Alison J. Nathan, to impose a sentence shorter than the 20 years that the court docket’s probation division had beneficial. The legal professionals urged that the federal government had determined to prosecute Ms. Maxwell after Mr. Epstein’s jailhouse suicide in 2019 to appease his victims and “restore the tarnished reputations” of the Justice Division and the Bureau of Prisons, in whose custody the disgraced financier died.

The protection had additionally urged that blame for Ms. Maxwell’s conduct lay with two males who’ve since died: Mr. Epstein and her merciless and intimidating father, the British media magnate Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991.

The federal government, in its letter on Wednesday to Decide Nathan, dismissed these claims, asserting that if something stood out from Ms. Maxwell’s sentencing submission, it was her failure to deal with her legal conduct and her “utter lack of regret.”

“As a substitute of exhibiting even a touch of acceptance of duty,” the workplace of Damian Williams, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, wrote, “the defendant makes a determined try and forged blame wherever else she will be able to.”

The prosecutors mentioned Ms. Maxwell’s try “to forged aspersions on the federal government for prosecuting her, and her declare that she is being held chargeable for Epstein’s crimes, are each absurd and offensive.”

“Maxwell was an grownup who made her personal decisions,” the federal government added. “She made the selection to sexually exploit quite a few underage women.”