NEW YORK – A federal jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of five of the six charges for which she has been standing trial in a Manhattan courtroom.
Maxwell, who was arrested in New Hampshire on July 2, 2020, was facing charges related to her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, a role that involved years of sexual abuse of minor girls, between 1994 and 2004. Epstein never answered the charges against him; he was found dead in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial.
On Wednesday a federal jury in Manhattan found Maxwell, 60, guilty of five charges that involved sex trafficking of minors. She was acquitted of one count of enticing a minor to travel across state lines to engage in an illegal sexual act. The verdict came after several days of deliberation.
According to a New York Times live update of the verdict, Maxwell, upon hearing the verdict, “touched her face, poured water again into a cup and again took a sip” before leaving the courtroom.
Maxwell had been on the run and hiding from authorities when the FBI moved in on her location in the small town of Bradford early in the morning on July 2, 2020.
In a news conference held later that day, FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said that the agency had been discretely keeping tabs on Maxwell for some time.
“We recently learned that she slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims suffered,” Sweeney said.
