Ghislaine Maxwell will attend Day 1 of the 4th WIE Symposium at Center 548 on September 20, 2013 in New York City.
Laura Cavanaugh | Getty Images
Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer on Tuesday complained to a federal judge that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s “accomplice” is being “overtaken” in prison, which includes interrupting his sleep every 15 minutes by guards, checking with a flashlight to see if he’s still breathing. .
Maxwell’s lawyer also said the British corporation would not be given enough time at Brooklyn Federal Prison in New York to review documents related to his criminal case and “prepare to protect his life.”
The complaint comes 15 months after Maxwell’s former friend Epstein died in what was officially convicted of suicide by hanging in another federal prison in New York City, where the wealthy money manager was charged with child sex trafficking.
Weeks before his death, Epstein was found half-conscious on the floor of the prison cells, with traces on his neck, his first obvious suicide offer.
In prison, two guards were charged with trying to cover up the failure to observe him and other detainees on the day of his death.
Maxwell is currently in 14-day quarantine after potential exposure to Covid-19 prison staff was uncovered by prosecutors on Monday. Prosecutors say the coronavirus turned out to be negative.
His lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, wrote in a letter to Manhattan federal judge Alison Nathan on Tuesday that Maxwell will be threatened with quarantine for another seven days if he refuses to scan the corona virus with two nostrils.
Sternheim complained that Maxwell had been ordered “for one-mouth inspection” to remove the Covid protective mask and had not initially received soap or a toothbrush when he began quarantine.
The lawyer also said medical staff stopped daily check-ups at Maxwell and “was not informed of the results of the COVID tests” and did not answer his question about what to do if he became symptomatic.
Despite the fact that no employee is said to be allowed to enter his cell in Brooklyn Prison during his quarantine, “an unknown man entered to photograph and a guard entered to search,” Nathan Sternheim wrote recently.
According to Sternheim’s letter, Maxwell is “a nonviolent, exemplary prior arrest, with no criminal history,” or a history of violence, mental health problems, or suicidal thoughts.
Nevertheless, the lawyer wrote, Maxwell is “overstated” in prison in conditions that are more severe than those of terrorists, murderers, and other dangerous and vulnerable inmates held by the federal prison system in the tightest conditions.
Sternheim asked Nathan to instruct the jailer, Heriberto Tellez, to report directly to the judge and Maxwell’s legal team on the “circumstances of his detention,” as opposed to prosecutors relying on used accounts in the U.S. Southern District. From New York.
The letter follows a day after prosecutors wrote to Nathan to inform him of Maxwell’s quarantine, and that Maxwell has so far proved negative to Covid.
Maxwell, 58, is being held on bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center on charges of allegedly recruiting and caring for several underage girls who were sexually abused by Epstein in the 1990s.
He was arrested in July, almost exactly a year after Epstein’s own arrest was made on federal charges, in a million-dollar hideout in New Hampshire.
Maxwell pleaded not guilty to the case and will be brought to justice next year.
Epstein, who was a friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as British Prince Andrew, pleaded guilty in 2008 to crimes in the state of Florida, among which he paid a child for sexual services. In this case, he spent 13 months in prison.
Last year, Trump’s then labor secretary, Alex Acosta, resigned after making strong criticisms of his decision in 2007 to terminate a non-prosecuting agreement with Epstein for federal crimes when Acosta’s Miami attorney was in return for his guilty charge in the state charge.
Prosecutors ’Monday letter contained details of Maxwell’s treatment in prison, which includes being released into his cell three times a week during quarantine for up to 30 minutes and using an email system to communicate with relatives and with him. lawyers.
In his own letter, Sternheim wrote, “the letter provides an incomplete picture of the circumstances of Ms Maxwell’s confinement.”
“The government highlights what Ms. Maxwell can allow, but not what they are denied: they treat other residents equally among the population,” the defense attorney wrote.
“Ms. Maxwell spent it [entirety] his pre-trial detention in a de facto solitary confinement in the most severe circumstances, where he is searched excessively and invasively and monitored 24 hours a day, “Sternheim said.” In addition to the camera surveillance in her cell, an additional camera also tracks her movements as she leaves her cell, focusing on Ms. Maxwell and giving advice during personal legal visits. “
“And despite uninterrupted intracellular camera surveillance, Ms. Maxwell’s sleep is interrupted every 15 minutes when a flashlight wakes her up to see if she’s breathing.”
The lawyer said prison officials admit that “because of his safety and the safety of the institution, they are unable to place him among the population, but [fail] to explain why they are deprived of all other options available to prisoners in the population. “
According to Sternheim, prosecutors claim that Maxwell “” still has more time to review his discovery than any other MDC inmate, even when in quarantine he “gives the unfair impression that they will be given a precondition.”
“However, given the voluminous discovery of the present case, as the most recent production alone was 1.2 million documents, the time given to Ms Maxwell is still not enough to review and prepare the defense of her life,” the lawyer wrote.
Shortly after Sternheim’s letter went to court, Nathan instructed the attorney and prosecutors to meet to comply with Sternheim’s request that the prison guard address Maxwell’s concerns directly about the circumstances of his detention. The judge also told the parties to send him a status report within the next week.
