A federal indictment claims Maxwell recruited, groomed and paid a 14-year-old girl to engage in sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein
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Ghislaine Maxwell was charged with the sex trafficking of a minor for her role in allegedly recruiting, grooming and paying a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual acts with Jeffrey Epstein, according to a federal indictment filed on Monday.
This is the first time Maxwell has been charged with sex trafficking; previously, Maxwell was charged with aiding Epstein’s abuse of young girls by recruiting, grooming and abusing girls as young as 14 from the years 1994 to 1997.
Monday’s indictment claims that the abuse took place from 1994 to 2004 and references an additional 14-year-old girl, identified only as Minor Victim-4.
According to the indictment, Maxwell met the 14-year-old girl at Epstein’s Palm Beach residence between 2001 and 2004, when the young girl gave nude massages to Epstein and during which time Epstein “engaged in multiple sex acts” with her.
The indictment said Maxwell “sought to normalize inappropriate and abusive conduct by, among other things, discussing sexual topics in front of Minor Victim-4 and being present when Minor Victim-4 was nude in the massage room of the Palm Beach Residence” and that Maxwell or Epstein’s other employees paid the 14-year-old girl “hundreds of dollars in cash” after each massage.
The young girl also brought “multiple” other girls, some under the age of 18, to also give “sexualized massages” to Epstein after being encouraged to recruit other girls, the indictment said. In those instances, the 14-year-old girl and the other girl she brought with her were both “paid hundreds of dollars in cash,” according to the indictment.
Maxwell was arrested last July and has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of facilitating sexual abuse of minors.
Attorneys for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
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