More than 400 pages of deposition transcripts that had been sealed in a defamation case involving Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, were released on Thursday morning following a Tuesday court order.
The documents were unsealed after U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered their release by 9 a.m. Thursday. They include transcripts of two days of depositions from 2016 of the often combative British socialite, 58, and related documents, along with the deposition transcript of an anonymous accuser.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL DEPOSITIONS ORDERED RELEASED BY THURSDAY MORNING
The depositions were taken as part of a lawsuit brought against Maxwell by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who had accused her of aiding Epstein in the abuse of Giuffre before she was an adult. The lawsuit was eventually settled.
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 18: Ghislaine Maxwell attends VIP Evening of Conversation for Women's Brain Health Initiative, Moderated by Tina Brown at Spring Studios on October 18, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
In the transcripts, Maxwell repeatedly derided Giuffre, saying: “She has lied repeatedly.”
Included among the documents released Thursday morning was Giuffre’s attorneys’ May 2016 motion to the court to compel Maxwell to answer certain questions that she avoided during the deposition.
“During her recent deposition, Defendant refused to answer numerous questions about allegedly 'adult' sexual activity related to Jeffrey Epstein. Because this activity is highly relevant to this case, Defendant should be ordered to answer questions about it,” wrote attorneys Sigrid McCawley, rad Edwards and Paul Cassell in their May 5, 2016 letter to the court. “As the Court is aware, this defamation case involves Ms. Giuffre’s assertions that she and other females were recruited by Defendant to be sexually assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein under the guise of being ‘massage therapists.’”
The trio wrote that Maxwell refused to answer questions, such as those regarding “what the alleged ‘massage therapists’ were doing at Jeffrey Epstein’s house and the sexual nature of those massages,” and also refused to speak to her own experience giving Epstein massages, court papers show.
“Defendant’s participation in massages with Epstein is a central part of this case,” the attorneys continued. “Ms. Giuffre has explained that during her first sexual encounter with Jeffrey Epstein, it was Defendant who provided instruction on how to do it and how to turn the massage into a sexual event.”
Photo from 2001 that was included in court files shows Prince Andrew with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre who says Jeffrey Epstein paid her to have sex with the prince. Andrew has denied the charges. In the background is Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. (Florida Southern District Court)
During an April 22, 2016 deposition, Maxwell denies having ever given a massage to Epstein “with a female that was under the age of 18,” court papers show. She also says she had never seen Epstein getting a massage from a girl under 18 years old.
As the deposition continues, Maxwell is asked if she had ever told a person, whose name is redacted, “that she would get extra money if she provided Jeffrey massages.”
She responds: “I was always happy to give career advice to people and I think that becoming somebody in the healthcare profession, either exercise instructor or nutritionist or professional massage therapist is an excellent job opportunity. Hourly wages are around 7, 8, $9 and as a professional healthcare provider you can earn somewhere between as we have established 100 to $200 and to be able to travel and have a job that pays that is a wonderful opportunity.”
Maxwell says her job with Epstein “included hiring many people.”
“As I sit here, I hired assistants, I hired architects, I hired decorators, I hired cooks, I hired cleaners, I hired gardeners … I hired all sorts of people,” she says, according to the court papers. “In the course and a very small part of my job was from from (sic) time to time to find adult professional massage therapists for Jeffrey.”
FILE - In this July 2, 2020, file photo, Audrey Strauss, acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a news conference, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
She later contradicts herself, saying she did not hire people – Epstein did.
The questioning pivots, as it often does, from massages to sexual contact and sex. Maxwell’s attorney at the time, Jeffrey Pagliuca, instructs her not to answer any questions that involve her consensual sex.
After some back and forth with Giuffre’s attorneys, Maxwell says: “I’ve never had nonconsensual sex with anybody.”
“I just testified I never had nonconsensual sex with anybody ever, at any time, at anyplace, at any time, with anybody,” she adds, according to court papers.
The lightly-redacted transcripts often include Maxwell’s statements describing Giuffre’s claims as lies, at one point calling Giuffre “just an awful fantasist.”
Yet, in at least one specific example attorneys were able to prove that Maxwell was lying in her responses during the deposition, court papers show.
“[A]ccording to flight logs, Defendant was on Epstein’s planes over 200 times – including 23 times with Ms. Giuffre when Ms. Giuffre was underage. Yet, quite remarkably, Defendant claimed she ‘couldn’t recall’ even one of those flights,” states a May 11, 2016 letter to the court regarding the motion to compel. “Defendant’s deposition consisted almost entirely of ‘I don’t recalls’ or ‘I refuse to answer that question’ and also included a physical outburst that knocked the court reporter’s computer off the conference room table.”
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City. (Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
At one point, when discussing a claim that Giuffre made about her age – which Maxwell called “absolutely, manifestly, absolutely, totally a lie” – Maxwell “very harshly pounded [the] law firm table in an appropriate manner,” Giuffre’s attorneys noted in the transcript records.
“I know this is a difficult position but physical assault or threats is not appropriate, so no pounding, no stomping, no, that’s not appropriate,” the attorney says.
“Can we be clear,” Maxwell adds, “I didn’t threaten anybody.”
During the deposition, Maxwell addresses Guiffre's claim that President Bill Clinton was on Epstein's island where she was present, saying: "Absolutely 1000 percent that is a flat out total fabrication and life."
She acknowledges, however, that Clinton did travel on Epstein's plane.
Maxwell also denied introducing Britain’s Prince Andrew to underage sex partners, including Giuffre.
Giuffre has accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous wealthy and influential men, including Prince Andrew. He and the other men have denied her allegations.
She said Maxwell recruited her at age 17 to be sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell from 1999 to 2002.
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 13: Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend Batman Forever/R. McDonald Event on June 13, 1995 in New York City. (Photo by Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
As for whether she was Epstein's girlfriend after meeting him in 1991, Maxwell called it a “tricky question.”
“There were times when I would have liked to think of myself as his girlfriend," she said.
Lawyers for Maxwell, 58, recently argued that the documents reflecting seven hours of interviews over two days should remain sealed, in part to protect her right to a fair trial in July on charges that she helped Epstein traffic and sexually abuse teenage girls in the 1990s.
They noted that portions of the transcripts relate to perjury charges in the indictment she faces. She has pleaded not guilty.
Maxwell has been incarcerated since her arrest in early July. If convicted, she could face up to 35 years in prison.
TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN'S EX-MADAM CAN BE MADE PUBLIC, APPEALS COURT RULES
Meanwhile, prosecutors filed papers late Tuesday to insist that 40 pages of materials and 40 pictures related to women abused by Epstein after the period addressed in the indictment should not be released to defense lawyers until eight weeks before trial.
“The premature revelation of this information would give the defendant the opportunity to interfere with the Government’s investigation before it is complete. Such information could allow her to contact and intimidate witnesses, destroy evidence relevant to the investigation, or alert other targets of the investigation,” prosecutors wrote.
Maxwell's lawyers have argued that the materials could be important to her defense and should be turned over sooner.
Ghislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing where she was denied bail for her role aiding Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and eventually abuse of minor girls, in Manhattan Federal Court, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. July 14, 2020 in this courtroom sketch. (REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg)
But prosecutors said showing Maxwell was not part of the abuse of some women could not be used to argue she did not join the abuse of minors from 1994 to 1997.
“The Government has not charged Maxwell with being Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘madam’ and ‘principal facilitator of his abuse,'” they wrote.
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Maxwell's arrest came a year after Epstein, 66, was charged with sex trafficking. He killed himself in August 2019 at a federal jail in Manhattan where he was awaiting trial without bail.
In 2008 in Florida, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution. He spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and remained a registered sex offender.
Fox News' Maria Paronich and Jennifer Oliva and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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