The defence team of Ghislaine Maxwell, former associate of disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has apparently adopted a new strategy ahead of her forthcoming sentencing on 28 June.
As Maxwell was found guilty of recruiting underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein, her lawyers launched a “humanisation campaign” aimed at securing “leniency” for her, The Guardian reports.
According to the media outlet, the sentencing paperwork prepared by Maxwell’s defence portrays her upbringing as filled with neglect and abuse.
For example, the paperwork mentions how Maxwell’s father, the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, “employed corporal punishment on his children”, with Ghislaine’s lawyers describing one such instance that occurred when she, then a 13-year old girl, “tacked a poster of a pony on the newly painted wall of her bedroom”.
“Rather than mar the paint with tape, she carefully hammered a thin tack to mount the poster,” her team alleged. “This outraged her father, who took the hammer and banged on Ghislaine’s dominant hand, leaving it severely bruised and painful for weeks to come.”
Several of Ghislaine’s siblings also reportedly said in the sentencing paperwork that it is “striking” that she “did not show any perverse behaviour before she met Epstein”.
“Nor did she show any after leaving him, which she eventually managed to do,” they added. “The effect of our father’s psychologically abusive treatment of her, foreshadowed Epstein’s own ability to exploit, manipulate and control her.”
Maxwell’s team therefore argued that their client should be sentenced to “well below” the 20 years recommended by probation officials, the media outlet notes.
“She had a difficult, traumatic childhood with an overbearing, narcissistic and demanding father. It made her vulnerable to Epstein, whom she met right after her father’s death,” Maxwell’s lawyers said. “It is the biggest mistake she made in her life and one that she has not and never will repeat.”