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Ghislaine Maxwell only discussed divorce with her husband ahead of her July arrest in order to "protect" him from "being associated with her," her lawyers wrote in a motion filed Wednesday.
Attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein’s accused madam are pushing back against prosecutors’ claims that Maxwell gave "plainly inconsistent statements" about her relationship with her hubby in her proposed $28.5 million bail package.
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"Ms. Maxwell and her spouse had discussed the idea of getting a divorce as an additional way to get distance between [them] to protect him (redacted) from the terrible consequences of being associated with her," the filing states.
The British socialite recently proposed the massive bail package — that represents all of her and tech CEO Scott Borgerson’s assets — in a desperate bid to get sprung from federal lockup.
Her lawyers argued that Maxwell, 58, wouldn’t flee from prosecution because of "strong ties" to the community — including her four-year relationship with Borgerson — and because she’d be putting both their financial futures at risk if she did.
But prosecutors called out Maxwell for allegedly telling pretrial services that she was "in the process of divorcing her husband" after federal agents picked her up on a six-count indictment.
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Borgerson "refused to come forward at the time of her arrest" in July when she made her first bid for bail, undermining her claim "that her marriage is a tie that would keep her in the US," the prosecutors argued.
But Maxwell’s attorneys on Wednesday accused the feds of trying to "dismiss" the couple’s relationship, noting that Borgerson has since come forward and submitted a detailed letter describing their loving marriage in the bail application.
"The government has offered nothing but unsupported innuendo to suggest that Ms. Maxwell’s relationship with her spouse is not a powerful tie to this community," they wrote.
Under the proposed package, Maxwell would be released to home confinement with a GPS ankle monitor — although the name of the person with whom she’d reside was withheld.
The heiress would also sign waivers of her right to contest extradition from two countries where she holds passports: France and the UK.
A judge previously refused to release Maxwell to home confinement on a $5 million bond shortly after her arrest.
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But Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced media titan Robert Maxwell, has whined that the restrictive conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn have made her life unbearable, and made another attempt to secure bail.
She is charged with recruiting and grooming three girls to be sexually abused by her and Epstein in the 1990s, and then lying about it.
Maxwell has denied the allegations.
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