British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, indicted for allegedly scheming with her former boyfriend and close associate, the late Jeffrey Epstein, to groom young women and girls for sexual abuse, has hired the defence lawyer who helped convict notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, The Times reports.
Court filings cited by the outlet state that Maxwell, 58, is being represented by Christian Everdell, who reportedly worked as a prosecutor for over 10 for the Southern District of New York and has made a name for himself in high-profile cases.
Everdell’s impressive track record shows he and his team were awarded a “True American Hero Award” by the Federal Drug Agent Foundation for “their work in the investigation and apprehension of the former head of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico (‘Chapo’ Guzman)”.
A former colleague, Jennifer Rodgers, tweeted she believed the eminent lawyer, who received an education at Harvard Law School and Princeton University, might encourage Maxwell to strike a deal with prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Laura Goldman, a friend of Maxwell, has predicted that she will possibly agree to a plea bargain.
“In the end her lawyers will have to represent her, not the cabal, and I think she will have to take some sort of deal. I last spoke to her three weeks ago, she expected her fate,” Goldman was quoted in The Times as stating.
On 6 July Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where insider sources say measures have been taken to avoid the woman suffering the same fate as her former associate, convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019.
Maxwell, who had been hiding in New Hampshire since last July according to US prosecutors, was arrested on 2 July and charged with six counts related to the alleged recruitment of women and girls as young as 14 for trafficking and sexual abuse, stretching back to 1994.
The charges stem from accounts provided by several of Epstein’s alleged victims.
Four of the charges allege that Maxwell groomed girls to be sexually abused by Epstein in the period from 1994 to 1997, with two others claiming she committed perjury when denying knowledge of the disgraced financier’s abuse in a 2016 deposition.
At the remote hearing in a Manhattan federal court, set for 14 July, Maxwell, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, will be given the opportunity to enter a plea and apply for bail.
If found guilty of all charges, Ghislaine Maxwell may face a prison sentence of 35 years.