NEW YORK CITY – A federal judge ordered Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, jailed pending trial saying her significant financial resources, international ties, and “extraordinary” capacity to avoid detection makes her a serious flight risk.
Maxwell, 58, pleaded not guilty at the bail hearing in Manhattan federal court today, where her lawyer had sought her release on a $5 million bond. She is currently being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and was arrested by federal agents at a 156-acre, $1 million New Hampshire estate she purchased in cash through a corporation to shield her identity in December. FBI agents had to bust into her residence after she failed to cooperate with orders to surrender.
Maxwell poses “a substantial risk of flight,” said U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan. “The risk is simply too great” for her to be released on bail.
Prosecutors said she had an “extraordinary incentive to flee” and has virtually no ties in the United States. Ghislaine was born in France, raised in the United Kingdom and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002. Maxwell hold passports for all three countries, federal prosecutors said. She faces 35 years in prison.
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