Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Former socialite Gallaine Maxwell spent the last few months at
Speaker 1: a luxurious one fifty six acre estate with cathedral ceilings,
Speaker 1: a barn and views of the mount Sun of pet Foothills,
Speaker 1: hidden away in the woods of Bradford, New Hampshire, the
Speaker 1: type of luxury retreat she'd grown accustomed to as Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein's girlfriend. Now, however, her accommodations are not so glamorous
Speaker 1: and downright confining. Her new digs are at the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, a place so infamous
Speaker 1: that a magistrate judge once said she was reluctant to
Speaker 1: send women there because of the unconscionable conditions. Maxwell was
Speaker 1: arrested last Thursday in New Hampshire on multiple charges, including
Speaker 1: conspiracy to entice underage girls to engage in illegal sex
Speaker 1: acts with Epstein. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado.
Speaker 1: Pat tell us about Xwell before she met Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: She's the daughter of a multimillionaire investor who bought a
Speaker 1: lot of newspapers in the UK and the New York
Speaker 1: Dailing News. And his name is Robert Maxwell. And she
Speaker 1: grew up in the UK, born in France, group in
Speaker 1: Britain and educated at Oxford And she traveled in you know,
Speaker 1: prominent circles, and she met Epstein and became his girlfriend
Speaker 1: and seems to have introduced him to a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, high powered people and influential people like Prince Andrew.
Speaker 1: What was her relationship with Epstein, Like, she started as
Speaker 1: his girlfriend and then allegedly it evolved into her sort
Speaker 1: of running this sex ring. Yeah, it's a very strange
Speaker 1: story that they dated and then according to some of
Speaker 1: the victims of sexual abuse by Epstein, they call her
Speaker 1: as kind of like a procurist who not only ran
Speaker 1: his household for him, but also seems to have lured
Speaker 1: these enticed young women into the Epstein's orbit, inviting them
Speaker 1: in and then during sessions she normalized what the prosecutor
Speaker 1: said was you know, a barent behavior. She normalized massages
Speaker 1: that became sexualized. And they the girls who are very young, underaged,
Speaker 1: some from broken homes or very poor would be finding
Speaker 1: themselves in the company of a woman who was there
Speaker 1: and they thought she was their friend. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: they're being asked to disrobe and give him a massage.
Speaker 1: Has she been in hiding or is it the first
Speaker 1: time that they've decided to charge her. Well, there's different stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you several newspapers claimed that she was
Speaker 1: in Paris, she was kind of like Zeller everywhere she's No,
Speaker 1: she's in l A. No, she's in Paris, you know,
Speaker 1: while she's on Avenue talk and she's eating outside on
Speaker 1: the Left Bank or whatever. So the government says that
Speaker 1: she has been in the United States since Epstein's arrest
Speaker 1: a year ago this this week, but that she was
Speaker 1: basically hiding. There was money that was transferred. That's where
Speaker 1: she bought this million dollar home hidden away in the
Speaker 1: mountains of New Hampshire and Bradford, New Hampshire. So they
Speaker 1: were saying she was actually in high The government says
Speaker 1: she was actually in hiding, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: arguments they're arguing she should not get bail because she's
Speaker 1: a risk of a high risk of flight. She could abscone,
Speaker 1: she could cut off an electric um ankle monitor and
Speaker 1: take off and they wouldn't be able to find her
Speaker 1: because they she would have had a head start on them.
Speaker 1: Does she have money? Is that known? Uh, It's unclear.
Speaker 1: The government does say that she seems to have been
Speaker 1: the recipient of millions of dollars transferred to her from
Speaker 1: Epstein's accounts, and there's back and forth. It's unclear why,
Speaker 1: but it's like the transfers go back and forth and
Speaker 1: one million will get sent to her on account controlled
Speaker 1: by her associated with Epstein, and then the money would
Speaker 1: get transferred back. This was all before he died in
Speaker 1: jail style last year. So the Southern District came out
Speaker 1: with the charges. What have they charged her with? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's six counts, including conspiracy, there's alluring and enticing of
Speaker 1: young underage girls for sex. There's also a charge that
Speaker 1: she lied under oath during a deposition where one of
Speaker 1: these victims sued her and she claimed to not know
Speaker 1: what they were talking about. So the government sort of
Speaker 1: added that on as extra and an extra charge that
Speaker 1: she's also lied in criminal cases. It's interesting because they
Speaker 1: charged her with engaging inst activity between and when Epstein
Speaker 1: was case was brought for time period much later. It's
Speaker 1: unclear why, but it sounds like that's what the government
Speaker 1: had the strongest evidence. They have three women unidentified female
Speaker 1: victims who said they were underage miners when she lured
Speaker 1: them into his household and engaged in sexual activity with
Speaker 1: these young women as well as Epstein. Where is she now, Well,
Speaker 1: she's being held at the federal jail in Brooklyn. It's
Speaker 1: in Sunset Park. You can see it off the Dusty
Speaker 1: b Quee and she is being held in presumably solitary confinement.
Speaker 1: It's a federal jail that's been criticized for having terrible conditions,
Speaker 1: and one federal magistrate was presiding over conditions there she
Speaker 1: called so bad she likened them to a third world
Speaker 1: country condition. She is likely to be asking for bail.
Speaker 1: The government is arguing she should not be granted, and
Speaker 1: there will now be a hearing on the field day
Speaker 1: on the Live four team before a federal judge about
Speaker 1: whether she should get bailed. Do we have any idea
Speaker 1: what her defense will be pat it's unclear what her
Speaker 1: defense is. They haven't said anything. The Statute of Limitations
Speaker 1: does not expire when it revolves underage youth for sex trafficking,
Speaker 1: so there's no statute of limitations, even though we're talking
Speaker 1: about crimes that susually happened twenty seven years ago. But
Speaker 1: I'm sure that her lawyers are going to challenge the
Speaker 1: veracity of these women. How do you know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about? How can you be sure that was twenty
Speaker 1: seven years ago? You know your memory it could be
Speaker 1: a very cloudy at this point, and attack them perhaps.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was already an argument posed by f
Speaker 1: Stein's defense lawyers that these women were basically suggesting that
Speaker 1: they were sex workers and not victims um, which was
Speaker 1: not a view too fondly at their original oral arguments
Speaker 1: that they have for Epstein. His lawyers made that argument,
Speaker 1: and the judge didn't take too kindly to hearing these
Speaker 1: young women who are underage. You know, you can't form
Speaker 1: consent if you're fourteen years old, you're not a sex worker.
Speaker 1: Even if you took money, you're not a sex worker
Speaker 1: because you know you're underage. And supposedly Epstein knew that,
Speaker 1: and supposedly she knew it. So there are so many
Speaker 1: questions that people are looking to this case to answer,
Speaker 1: And one of the questions is who else will she incriminate?
Speaker 1: Do we know what the government has against any other people?
Speaker 1: We don't know that. And someone who's suggested to me
Speaker 1: that it's possible that some of the employees that work
Speaker 1: for Epstein, you know, longtime housekeepers say, or some someone
Speaker 1: like an assistant, maybe secretly cooperating. The government has already
Speaker 1: gotten that evidence. Conceivably, she is basically one of the
Speaker 1: key figures in this network and this web of that
Speaker 1: Epstein used to entice these young women. But there are
Speaker 1: possibilities there are people that helped aid him. And there's
Speaker 1: an article today we're writing, um my colleagues writing the
Speaker 1: Deutsche Bank had helped the lawyer working for Epstein to
Speaker 1: make transfers of money. There's possibility that the government has
Speaker 1: said publicly that they would like to interview Prince Andrew,
Speaker 1: and former U S Attorney Jeffrey Berman kept inviting the
Speaker 1: Prince to come and speak. He says he's offered, but
Speaker 1: that the government wouldn't agree to, you know, didn't agree
Speaker 1: to the terms. The government insists they have repeatedly asked him,
Speaker 1: and he's not agreed to. So they want to speak
Speaker 1: to Prince Andrew, what role, under what circumstances they may
Speaker 1: be looking to talk to him, It remains unclear. In
Speaker 1: your article, you mentioned that there's a potential that it
Speaker 1: could tarnish top figures on Wall Street, in Corporate America
Speaker 1: and in Washington. Yeah, and it's intriguing that there are
Speaker 1: papers under seal that in the civil lawsuits that there
Speaker 1: were depositions given in which other men are named and
Speaker 1: one of the name defendants and other individuals like men
Speaker 1: who have sex with these young women. And it's intriguing
Speaker 1: about who would be on that group as those documents
Speaker 1: remain under seal. Do you make anything of the fact
Speaker 1: that prosecutors from the Public Corruption Unit have been assigned
Speaker 1: to the case? You know, I was asking around about that,
Speaker 1: and it could be that it was considered the kind
Speaker 1: of case that possible involved high profiled individuals that may
Speaker 1: have been under suspicion or implicated in this involvement with Epstein,
Speaker 1: and he had a lot of powerful friends and claimed
Speaker 1: to know a lot of powerful influential people. So it
Speaker 1: could be that with the consideration, the government decided to
Speaker 1: go with that unit that has had that experience in
Speaker 1: the past of dealing with potential high profile figures. And
Speaker 1: we need to remember that this case also came after
Speaker 1: Secretary Acosta did a did a plea deal when he
Speaker 1: was the U S attorney with Epstein. So it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing where if you're going after a descendant
Speaker 1: that already reached a plea deal with a guy who's
Speaker 1: now in the cabinet President Trump's cabinet, whether you want
Speaker 1: to have some prosecutors who have some agility with dealing
Speaker 1: with you know, high influential types that you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a hotitay tho that you might want to
Speaker 1: have somebody without that experience to deal with it. Where
Speaker 1: did the civil lawsuits stand? Is there in a state
Speaker 1: of Epstein? Or might they now be able to go
Speaker 1: after her? There is a question if she can. She
Speaker 1: has sought to get access to money from Epstein, and
Speaker 1: there's also a slew of lawsuits by victims against Epstein
Speaker 1: and others involved with him, other employees and his accountant.
Speaker 1: For example. There is the state of money. It's valued
Speaker 1: at more than six hundred million dollars and it was
Speaker 1: in the Virgin Islands that he established it right before
Speaker 1: he connad a suicide. So that money has now been
Speaker 1: made available for potential victims to come forward, and it's
Speaker 1: being operated by people who handled the World Trade Center.
Speaker 1: Non eleven victims fund, So it's another pocket of money
Speaker 1: that's available to victims, and they can come forward confidently
Speaker 1: that they can make a claim and it's going to
Speaker 1: have less it's going to be less restrictive and less
Speaker 1: demanding for establishing a claim than would normally be required
Speaker 1: under a civil suit. And these women might get from
Speaker 1: some financial recourse. You know, some of their lives have
Speaker 1: been destroyed that they have never been the saints since
Speaker 1: they were young girls that were already from maybe a
Speaker 1: poor background or broken home or runaways, and then they
Speaker 1: became victims for for Epstein schemes and they've never recovered
Speaker 1: since then. Is there any talk that there might be
Speaker 1: a plea deal in this case because she has information
Speaker 1: that prosecutors may want, there is a possibility, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that the government would like to have her
Speaker 1: plea guilty and allow her to do some prison time
Speaker 1: and results of a plea deal. Some people have suggested
Speaker 1: that since she's so high ranking, you know, she was
Speaker 1: a very involved, high profile person in his world, she
Speaker 1: might know others, so they would certainly like to hear
Speaker 1: from her. However, they noted, you know, it's a kind
Speaker 1: of thing like when you make a plea deal. Usually,
Speaker 1: don't go after the crime boss. You might go after
Speaker 1: his underlings first and work your way up with cooperators
Speaker 1: until you get to the big top person. And since
Speaker 1: Epstein's death, it robbed the government of having him at
Speaker 1: the center. Now she's the second closest person to the center.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they would love to have her flee guilty,
Speaker 1: but whether or not they would let her walk away
Speaker 1: with too light a sentence doesn't seem possible. Thanks Pat.
Speaker 1: That's Gumber Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado and Brosso and this
Speaker 1: is Ver