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re: EPSTEIN & Maxwell Had SEX at Queens' Balmoral estate
Why Prosecutors are Targeting The Mystery of Ghislaine Maxwells' Extraordinary Wealth
Mystery has always surrounded the source of Ghislaine Maxwells' Vast Wealth.
The Telegraph 8 DEC 2021.
Ghislaine Maxwells' wealth linked to Epstein in court
Even the heiress herself “cannot remember off the top of her head just how many millions of dollars she has”, a court heard earlier this year.
On Monday, the trial into her alleged sex trafficking went part of the way to clearing things up.
In three transactions over the course of eight years, Epstein directly wired more than $30 million to the British socialite, the jury heard.
She used at least $7 million to buy a helicopter.
But why were Ms Maxwell's financial dealings being dragged through a sex abuse trial?
Epstein and Maxwell pictures in a presentation by police
Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Ms Maxwell was so close to Epstein that she must be complicit in his crimes. Lawyers told the jury on Monday that the vast sums of money she received from Epstein – still only a fraction of his estimated $630m fortune – showed what an integral figure Ms Maxwell was in his life.
Others have gone further, and suggest Ms Maxwell was paid to groom underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.
“So many have asked me: why would Ghislaine do it? Why would a woman bring girls to her boyfriend for him to sexually abuse?” asked Lisa Bloom, a lawyer for a number of Epstein’s victims.
“The prosecution theory is pretty simple: money. Shocking amounts of it. What a life she lived with Epstein's vast wealth. Here's but one small example,” she said, referring to the $18.5 transfer from Epstein to Ms Maxwell. Ms Bloom is not involved in the current trial.
Ms Maxwell denies all charges. Her legal team, for whom she has paid roughly $7m since 2020, has so far sought to discredit the testimony of alleged victims in court, suggesting they are seeking financial compensation.
Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA, in 2004
Following her father Robert’s death in 1991 Ghislaine Maxwell boarded a Concorde and moved to America, reportedly living off an annual income of £80,000 from a trust fund established in Liechtenstein by her father.
But as time passed her wealth rapidly grew – and with it the mystery surrounding where it all came from.
Aside from the money wired directly from Epstein, there are other clues to where her reserves come from.
Earlier this year, she sold her Belgravia home for £1.75 million to help fund her expensive legal team.
The white mews house with red front door is where Prince Andrew was pictured with his arm around Virginia Roberts Giuffre. The Belgravia home, near Hyde Park was reportedly purchased by a property developer.
Her five-story Manhattan townhouse was sold in 2016 for $15 million by a company that used the address of Epstein’s New York office.
And in 2020 Maxwell was arrested at a $1 million luxury four-bedroom New Hampshire house that was bought the year before in cash.
Prosecutors said she had been living on the 156-acre property, which was acquired in an all-cash purchase, “through a carefully anonymised LLC”.
A listing on property website Zillow described the house as an “amazing retreat for the nature lover who also wants total privacy”.
Property which is believed to be the home of Ghislaine Maxwell in Bradford, New Hampshire
In an attempt to prove Epstein paid Ms Maxwell millions directly, a JP Morgan executive was called to the witness box to verify bank statements.
The couple appeared to have bank accounts linked to New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and the US Virgin Islands, an infamous tax haven.
Bank statements shown for the first time detailed wire transfers of $18.3 million in 1999, $5 million in 2002 and $7.4 million in 2007, in evidence that offered an extraordinary insight into how the heiress financed her lavish lifestyle.
The transfers showed Epstein, the late financier, cashing out shares and wiring money to accounts in the name of both Ms Maxwell and “Air Ghislaine Inc.”
One payment, in June 2007, came from an account linked to Epstein in the US Virgin Islands and was transferred from Ms Maxwell’s personal account with JP Morgan. From there it was sent to a company called Air Ghislaine Inc. That company then purchased a green Sikorsky S76C helicopter and downpayment on an “executive finish”.
Following her arrest in July 2020, Ms Maxwell, 59, who has spent the last 15 months in a federal prison in Brooklyn, put up a staggering some $28 million in bond to secure her release – dwarfing the figure put up by Ponzi scheme banker Bernie Madoff and thought to be one of the highest ever bond packages offered in the US.
“At a basic level, the defence argument is that she cannot remember off the top of her head just how many millions of dollars she has,” assistant US Attorney Alison Moe said at one of Ms Maxwell’s bail hearings as she criticised Ms Maxwell’s lack of transparency around her wealth. The prosecutor said Ms Maxwell’s claims to have less than $1 million in the bank and no monthly income was “implausible.”
The US government said they had identified more than 15 different bank accounts associated with the heiress from 2016 with balances ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $20 million.
After the date of the last transfer, the government previously revealed it had information that, between 2007 and 2011, more than $20 million was transferred from offshore accounts associated with Jeffrey Epstein to several associated with Ms Maxwell.
Millions were later transferred back.
The transactions themselves, however, could yet play a crucial role in the 'trial of the century'.
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