https://www.NYTimes.com/2020/10/22/nyregion/ghislaine-maxwell-epstein-deposition.html
Ghislaine Maxwell Deposition Is Released
By Benjamin Weiser, Alan Feuer, Amy Julia Harris
22 October 2020
Ms. Maxwell, who fought to keep the deposition secret, repeatedly denied that she helped Jeffrey Epstein recruit and sexually abuse teenage girls.
Ghislaine Maxwell is embraced by Jeffrey Epstein
For years, Ghislaine Maxwell has been a central but silent figure in the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein’s history of abusing teenage girls.
On Thursday, however, Ms. Maxwell offered her fullest response yet to the swirl of claims surrounding Mr. Epstein as a four-year-old deposition was released. In it, she put up a wall of evasions and denials.
Over and over again in the 418-page deposition, Ms. Maxwell, 58, rejected accusations of wrongdoing. She denied that she had recruited minors to give Mr. Epstein sexual massages. She denied that she knew he was abusing girls and young women. She denied having engaged in sexual acts herself with underage people.
“I can’t think of anything I have done that is illegal,” she said.
At one point, Ms. Maxwell was asked more than a dozen times if she believed that Mr. Epstein had abused any minors — and each time she failed to answer. At another point, she parried inquiries about a laundry basket of sex toys, telling the lawyer asking questions, “I need you to define a sex toy.”
Eventually, Ms. Maxwell became so frustrated that she suddenly erupted into a “physical outburst” and knocked the court reporter’s computer off the conference room table, according to a separate document released with her deposition. She later apologized for her behavior, the deposition said.
As Mr. Epstein’s former romantic partner, Ms. Maxwell became the focus of a federal investigation into his sex-trafficking network after his suicide in jail last year at age 66. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged her with conspiring with Mr. Epstein, a financier, in his abuse of minors. As his closest associate, she is believed to have extensive information about him and others who might have been involved.
But her deposition left unanswered the question of who that might be: Nearly all of the names contained within it — except her own and Mr. Epstein’s — were redacted.
Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers did not Read the rest of this entry »
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