..
US: Ghislaine Maxwell charged with sex trafficking in new federal indictment
..
She initially was accused of recruiting and grooming Epstein's underage victims
Published: March 30, 2021 07:56
Washington Post
Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, announces charges against Ghislaine Maxwel during a July 2, 2020, press conference in New York City.
Ghislaine Maxwel (right) with Jeffrey Epstein.
Image Credit: AFP
New York: Federal prosecutors filed sex-trafficking charges Monday against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, expanding their criminal case ahead of her anticipated trial this summer.
The superseding indictment from the Manhattan US attorney's office cites a new unidentified victim who was 14 years old when Maxwell brought her into Epstein's circle around 2001, prosecutors say, bringing the number of victims in the case to four.
The new alleged offenses also widen the time frame law enforcement is scrutinising. In Maxwell's original indictment, announced upon her arrest last year, the charges pertained only to suspected crimes dating to the mid-1990s. The girl cited in court papers Monday was enlisted by Maxwell and paid to give Epstein sexualised massages between 2001 and 2004, according to the new indictment.
Maxwell and Epstein compensated the girl with "hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter" at his home in Palm Beach, Fla., and encouraged her "to recruit other girls to engage in paid sex acts with Epstein, which she did," the document adds. Epstein employees, including Maxwell, who managed his properties, also allegedly sent her gifts, including lingerie.
Epstein, a multimillionaire who was indicted in New York in 2019, died by suicide at a federal jail here weeks later. He was previously given a lenient plea deal in Florida, despite a large number of victims who had come forward to law enforcement years ago.
Maxwell, who is slated to stand trial in July, initially was accused of recruiting and grooming Epstein's underage victims and now faces additional counts of sex trafficking of a minor and sex trafficking conspiracy. She has maintained her innocence and is appealing the denial of her third bail application since her arrest.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison conditions ‘fit for HANNIBAL LECTER,’ lawyer claims, decrying ‘sexism’ in repeated bail denials
FILE PHOTO: The Metropolitan Detention Center, where Ghislaine Maxwell is held in custody, is pictured in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. © Reuters / Mike Segar
A lawyer defending Jeffrey Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell is arguing that she should be treated as well as Harvey Weinstein and other wealthy men who were granted bail after being charged with sex crimes.
“The truth is that wealthy men charged with similar or more serious offenses, many of whom have foreign ties, are routinely granted bail so that they can effectively prepare for trial,” lawyer David Oscar Markus said on Thursday in an appeal of US District Court Judge Alison Nathan's denial last month of the British socialite's latest bail request.
Markus argued that the 59-year-old Maxwell, who is incarcerated in a Brooklyn jail, is being held in conditions “fitting for Hannibal Lecter,” despite her being a “model prisoner.” While being subject to “multiple invasive searches every day” and a flashlight being shined into her cell every 15 minutes, Maxwell is unable to effectively prepare her defense for trial, the lawyer said.
The British socialite is accused of procuring and grooming girls as young as 14 for Epstein to sexually abuse. Maxwell, who was arrested last July, allegedly participated in the abuse in some cases. The federal indictment against her was expanded this week to eight counts, including sexual trafficking and conspiracy to commit sexual trafficking.
Nathan denied Maxwell's third bail request, even after she offered to renounce her citizenship in the UK and France to allay flight concerns. Maxwell has offered several other concessions to ensure she won't flee prosecution, but Nathan said in her latest ruling that “there are no combination of conditions that can reasonably assure her appearance” in court.
Markus cited Bill Cosby and Dominique Strauss-Kahn as other wealthy men accused of sex crimes who were granted bail and showed up for their trials. Other rich and notorious examples were Bernie Madoff and John Gotti.
Some of the issues with the conditions in which Maxwell is jailed stem from the fact that she's on suicide watch. Epstein died in his New York jail cell in August 2019 in an apparent suicide, but his abrupt death fueled speculation about the powerful people who may have been incriminated by testimony in his case.
“Because of the Epstein effect, she's being detained and in truly unacceptable conditions,” Markus wrote. “All we are asking for is a chance to defend the case.”
Because of Covid-19 restrictions, Maxwell hasn't been able to meet with her lawyers in person to prepare for trial, Markus alleged. Her water is often non-potable, and for months, her meals were microwaved with plastic melted into the food, according to the filing. She's trying to review 2.5 million documents for her case on a computer with no search capability. Maxwell's criminal trial is scheduled to begin in July.
Maxwell also faces a civil lawsuit, which was put on hold last year amid the criminal case. A Turkish woman suing Epstein's estate alleged in a lawsuit filed last week that Epstein and Maxwell kidnapped her and repeatedly raped her in front of her 8-year-old son. The suit also alleged that Epstein and Maxwell made various threats against the woman, who wasn't identified, including saying that she would be fed to alligators if she ever revealed what they did to her.
Hunter Biden says incriminating laptop ‘absolutely’ could have been his, suggests ‘Russian intelligence’ possibly behind leak
2 Apr, 2021 15:08
Hunter Biden speaks by video feed during the final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 20, 2020 © Reuters / 2020 Democratic National Convention
With the election over and his father in the White House, Hunter Biden has admitted that the laptop seemingly implicating his family in numerous foreign corruption schemes may have been his all along.
The laptop “absolutely” could have belonged to him, the younger Biden told CBS News, in an interview set to broadcast on Sunday. When asked whether he could give a yes or no answer, Biden replied “I have no idea.”
Recovered from a Delaware repair shop in 2019 and handed last year to Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, the laptop – which receipts indicated belonged to Hunter – contained a tranche of emails that appeared to implicate the Biden family in numerous foreign graft schemes, all while Joe was in the White House as vice president.
Among the schemes were an alleged cash-for-access plot, where Hunter was paid handsomely by a Ukrainian energy company to set up meetings between its executives and Joe Biden. And there was an attempt to set up a business venture in China, with ten percent of profits kicked up to Joe, allegedly referred to as “the big guy” in messages on the computer.
The New York Post revealed the laptop’s contents two weeks prior to November’s presidential election, but reporting on the story was heavily censored by social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. Twitter froze the New York Post’s account and Facebook – whose ‘election integrity’ chief was a former adviser to Joe Biden – quashed the story while its third-party “fact checkers” pored over it.
“Certainly, there could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me,” Biden told CBS. “It could be that I was hacked, it could be that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me,” he continued.
Hunter’s suggestion that his laptop may have been “hacked” was the same line used by Twitter in justifying its censorship of the Post’s articles, as the platform has a policy against the distribution of “hacked materials.”
The “Russian intelligence” theory was the one pushed by US intelligence operatives, Democratic lawmakers and Joe Biden’s campaign staff, even though there was zero evidence of this. The Director of National Intelligence at the time, John Ratcliffe, as well as the FBI, publicly stated that there was no reason to suspect Russian involvement in the leak.
While Hunter suggested that the device may have been “stolen,” the computer technician who handed the laptop to Giuliani also passed a copy of its contents to the FBI, saying he “saw stuff” law enforcement might be interested in. Receipts from his repair shop also apparently show Hunter signing off on the repair of three laptops on an unknown date.
Ultimately, the trove of information on the laptops failed to scupper Joe Biden’s bid for the White House. Now, with the elder Biden secure in the White House and Donald Trump’s court challenges to his election dead, conservatives and cynical commentators hammered the mainstream media and Big Tech for suppressing the story when it could have made a difference.
Delaware
Olympic gold medalist charged with child sex abuse in Utah
AP - Updated: 4:45 PM EDT Apr 1, 2021
FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2002, file photo, Jimmy Shea of the United States holds a photograph of his grandfather as he celebrates his gold medal winning run after the men's skeleton final at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in Park City, Utah. Shea has been charged with sexual abuse of a child in Utah. He made his first court appearance Monday, March 29, 2021, on one count of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and two counts of sexual battery. The alleged abuse occurred in 2020, court documents show. SOURCE: Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY —
A sledding gold medalist at the 2002 Winter Olympics has been charged with sexual abuse of a child in Utah. Court documents show James “Jimmy” Shea made his first court appearance Monday.
Shea’s attorney, Rudy Bautista, said Tuesday that the charges are a result of a family dispute and a misunderstanding about what his client contends was loving and affectionate touching.
Bautista says the 52-year-old Shea plans to plead not guilty. The Associated Press isn’t identifying the relationship of the alleged victim to Shea to protect the child’s identity.
Shea is a former resident of Lake Placid and also competed in the village's 1997 FIBT World Championships.
House Ethics Committee investigating underage sex claims
against Trump ally Matt Gaetz
10 Apr, 2021 03:48
FILE PHOTO: Matt Gaetz speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 29, 2020
© Reuters / Graeme Jennings
The Democrat-controlled House Ethics Committee is investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz, a stalwart ally of Donald Trump, for a litany of sexual misdeeds and corruption allegations. Gaetz insists he’s being set up.
A rising star in the Republican Party’s ‘MAGA wing,’ Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has spent the last two weeks fighting off mounting allegations of corruption and sexual misconduct. First, he was accused of sexual encounters with a teenage girl. Then he was accused of paying multiple adult women for sex via an accused sex trafficker. Finally, the House Ethics Committee announced on Friday that it would open an investigation into these allegations, as well as accusations that he used campaign funds to finance this activity.
The committee, led by Florida Democrat Ted Deutch, will also probe sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Tom Reed of New York, a Republican considered a potential challenger to Governor Andrew Cuomo. Unlike Gaetz, Reed has already admitted the allegations against him, apologized, and announced that he would not seek reelection next year.
In the weeks between the initial salacious reports and the committee opening the Gaetz investigation, the mainstream media dug up further allegations to back up the claims against the Florida Congressman. CNN, for example, claimed that he showed his fellow lawmakers naked pictures of the women he’d slept with.
Amid pressure from Democrats and from within his own party, Gaetz has refused to resign. He insists that the allegations are an attempt by a former Justice Department official to extort both him and his father, Don Gaetz. The man Gaetz has accused of running the extortion scheme admitted that he asked Gaetz’ father for cash, but denies any shakedown attempt. Documents seen by the Washington Examiner, however, show him promising that he could make Gaetz’ “future legal and political problems go away,” and warning the Congressman that the FBI had videos of him engaging in a “sexual orgy with underage prostitutes.”
If this is true, why haven't the FBI pressed charges against Gaetz? Are they saving it for use at a later date? Is the FBI breaking the law by not charging Gaetz with child sexual abuse? This needs to be investigated by an outside agency.
Whether these videos exist or not is unknown. In a further twist to the story, Gaetz insists that the sexual misconduct allegations against him are an attempt to distract from an ongoing FBI investigation into the alleged extortion attempt.
With the Justice Department and the Ethics Committee both investigating Gaetz, the Florida Republican’s future is up in the air. Before the scandal, Gaetz reportedly weighed the idea of running for higher office, possibly making a bid for the Senate in Alabama with Trump’s endorsement. Whether or not he is found guilty of any crime, the current storm of negative publicity would certainly complicate that effort.
Should the scandal crush Gaetz’ ambitions, Democrats wouldn’t be the only ones celebrating. Gaetz has made a number of enemies within the establishment wing of the Republican Party, among them anti-Trump Senator Liz Cheney, who Gaetz traveled to Wyoming in January to campaign against after Cheney voted to impeach Trump.
No comments:
Post a Comment