Prior to her sentencing, Ghislaine Maxwell told the court she was a “victim of helping Jeffrey Epstein” and that she feels “deeply” for the young girls against whom she was convicted of sex trafficking.
“Your Honor, it is difficult for me to address the court after listening to the pain and fear expressed today,” Maxwell said at a federal courthouse in New York City on Tuesday.
She took the stand after five women who accused her of helping Epstein to abuse them between 1994 and 2004 made emotional statements to the court.
Maxwell noted that the impact on so many women’s lives was hard to hear and she wanted to “acknowledge their suffering.”
She added, “I acknowledge that I have been the victim of helping Jeffrey Epstein commit these crimes.”
“I believe Jeffrey Epstein was a manipulative, cunning and controlling man who lived a deeply compartmentalized life and fooled everyone in his job,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell then said it should have been Epstein standing in front of them. Epstein died in 2019 by suicide in a Manhattan prison cell while awaiting his own trial for sex trafficking.
“He should have stood before you in 2005, again in 2009, and again in 2019.… All the times he was accused, charged and prosecuted. but today, in the end, it’s not about Jeffrey Epstein,” she said.
“To you, all victims…I’m sorry for the pain you have experienced.”
Maxwell added that she hopes her “harsh sentencing” will bring “pleasure” to the victims.
“It is my sincere wish to everyone in this courtroom and to everyone outside this courtroom that this day brings a terrible chapter to an end, to an end. And to those of you who have spoken here today and those of you who have not, may this day help you to travel from darkness to light,” she told the victims before concluding her statements.
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