Ghislaine Maxwell sex abuse trial: The dramatic fall of British socialite and ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted on Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The verdict capped a month-long trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico. Maxwell’s actions bring to mind one of Canada’s most notorious cases – the Ken and Barbie killers of the 1990s. Karla Homolka had helped her then-husband Paul Bernardo rape and murder three teenagers included her sister Tammy. Although Epstein-Maxwell did not kill, the latter has been accused of abetting Epstein’s crimes with teenage girls. While Maxwell was convicted on Wednesday, the larger debate on whether she was an unwitting pawn of Epstein’s manipulations or a knowing opportunist remains open. Also read: Ghislaine Maxwell guilty in Epstein sex trafficking trial; a look at the case and what it’s about Ghislaine Maxwell Born in 1961, Maxwell grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside and is the daughter of Robert Maxwell — a Czech-born newspaper tycoon and former British lawmaker who died under mysterious circumstances. The media magnate fell off his luxury yacht — called “Lady Ghislaine” — near the Canary Islands in 1991. He was posthumously discovered to have committed massive pension fraud against his employees. Her father, born Jan Ludvik Hoch, was born to Yiddish-speaking parents in what is now southwestern Ukraine. Escaping the Holocaust, he ultimately joined the British Army and transformed himself into Robert Maxwell. [caption id=“attachment_10246761” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Czech-born newspaper tycoon and former British lawmaker Robert Maxwell. Image Courtesy: AP[/caption] Maxwell built on his military connections to found a publishing empire that ultimately included the British tabloid The Daily Mirror, the New York Daily News and the book publisher Macmillan. He married, fathered nine children, was twice elected to Parliament. Ghislaine Maxwell was educated at Marlborough College and Oxford University, where she studied modern history and languages. It was while at the University of Oxford, she began building high-profile contacts. After graduating, she worked for her father and, in 1991, became his US emissary after he bought the Daily News amid efforts to compete with fellow media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It was after her father’s death in the same year when Ghislaine Maxwell was photographed sitting next to Epstein during a memorial. Following her father’s death, Maxwell reportedly moved to the United States. The Epstein Years Ian Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother, according to The Associated Press, said her relationship with Epstein developed after the family advised her to remain in the US because the Maxwell name was tainted in the UK. She had to forge new friendships in New York, he said. And one of those was with Epstein, a onetime teacher who built his fortune on the back of his own powerful contacts. [caption id=“attachment_10246781” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] File image showing Ghislaine Maxwell reading a statement expressing her family’s gratitude to Spanish authorities after recovery of her father’s body on 7 November, 1991. Image Courtesy: AP/Dominique Mollard[/caption] In sworn testimony for an earlier civil case, Ghislaine Maxwell acknowledged she dated Epstein but said she later became his employee, tasked with things like hiring staff for his six homes. Epstein described Maxwell as his best friend in a 2003 profile with Vanity Fair, according to a CNN report. “A very small part of my job was to find adult professional massage therapists for Jeffrey,” Maxwell said during a deposition in 2016. “As far as I’m concerned, everyone who came to his house was an adult professional person.” But in 2005, Epstein was arrested in Palm Beach, Florida, accused of hiring multiple underage girls to perform sex acts. He pleaded guilty to a charge of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and served 13 months in jail. Years of civil litigation followed, in which women accused Epstein and Maxwell of sexual abuse. Prosecutors in New York charged Epstein with sex trafficking in 2019, but he killed himself in jail before trial. The indictment against Maxwell is based on accusations from four women who say she recruited them to give Epstein massages that progressed into sexual abuse — Maxwell, allegedly, sometimes participated in the sexual encounters and was involved in paying at least one accuser. But the fine details of the relationship are not easy to pin down. When it began, how long it lasted and how exactly it should be characterised were all issues of contention at the trial, which has just concluded. With inputs from The Associated Press Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .