NEW YORK – Ghislaine Maxwell, the disgraced British socialite convicted of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the late US financier Jeffrey Epstein, will be sentenced in June, a US judge said Friday.
“The Court hereby schedules the sentencing in this matter for June 28, 2022, at 11.00am,” a court document signed by New York District judge Alison Nathan said.
Maxwell potentially faces life behind bars.
Her trial and conviction last month for assisting Epstein – who hanged himself in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial – exposed a murky world of sex trafficking among the rich and powerful.
The Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, who grew up in wealth and privilege and became a friend of British royalty, turned 60 on Christmas, just days before her conviction.
Two of Epstein’s victims said they were as young as 14 when Maxwell began grooming them and arranging for them to give massages to Epstein that ended in sexual activity.
Her lawyers demanded a new trial this month after a juror told a news agency he had helped convict Maxwell by telling fellow jury members about his experience of sexual abuse.
In response, the US government offered to drop two perjury charges linked to claims Maxwell made in a 2016 deposition in a separate civil lawsuit should the sex crimes conviction stand, according to court documents dated January 10.
Each perjury charge carries a maximum five-year prison term. – AFP, January 15, 2022
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