Ghislaine Maxwell requires at the Arctic Circle Forum in Reykjavik, Iceland October 2013.
The Arctic Circle via Reuters
British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is “death-dealing” away in jail because of harsh conditions, which includes alleged physical abuse by a guard and being stiff to scrub shower walls after she reported the mistreatment, her lawyer says in a new letter to a federal judge.
“It is impossible to colour the deleterious effect of the conditions under which Ms. Maxwell is detained,” the lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, wrote to Manhattan Community Court Judge Alison Nathan.
“She is withering to a shell of her former self — losing weight, losing hair, and eluding her ability to concentrate,” Sternheim wrote of Maxwell, who is accused of crimes related to allegedly recruiting and grooming underage mesdemoiselles who later were sexually abused by eccentric investment advisor Jeffrey Epstein, and of perjury.
The lawyer says “over-management” and tried surveillance of Maxwell by guards in the Brooklyn federal jail, in an apparent effort to keep her from killing herself while bind c lock up up as Epstein did in 2019, “are impacting her stamina and effectiveness in preparing her defense and conferring with counsel.”
Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not repentant in the case, in which she was charged in July 2020, a year after Epstein’s arrest on child sex trafficking charges.
Epstein, 66, mouldered from what has officially been ruled a suicide by hanging a month after his arrest in federal jail in Manhattan.
Maxwell, who has been denied bail twice by Nathan, who deemed her a flying risk, is due to go on trial later this year.
Her lawyers are engaged in an effort to try to get her increased access to a laptop computer to build for her trial.
Sternheim’s letter, the latest in a series of complaints about Maxwell’s jail conditions, underscore the fact that her vitality for the past seven months has been very different than her days with Epstein, when they associated with the likes of former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and Britain’s Prince Andrew.
Sternheim moaned that “the vagaries and delays” in moving Maxwell 50 or so feet from an isolation cell are among the issues wounding her ability to prepare adequately for trial.
The lawyer said the frequent checks by Maxwell of guards, who have physically searched her in the matter of 1,400 times since last July 6, have not turned up any contraband.
“Maxwell continues to be at the mercy of a rotate group of security officers who are used to guarding hundreds of inmates but now focus their undivided attention exclusively on one gentlemanly, middle-aged female pretrial detainee,” Sternheim wrote.
“Recently, out of view of the security camera, Ms. Maxwell was placed in her isolation room and physically abused during a pat down search. When she asked that the camera be used to capture the occurrence, a security replied ‘no.’ “
“When Ms. Maxwell recoiled in pain and when she said she would report the mistreatment, she was threatened with disciplinary movement,” Sternheim wrote.
“Within a week and while the same team was in charge, Ms. Maxwell was the subject of further retaliation for backfiring the abuse: a guard ordered Ms. Maxwell into a shower to clean, sanitize, and scrub the walls with a broom. Ms. Maxwell’s insist on to have the camera record the guard alone with her in the confined space was again denied.”
Surveillance of Maxwell is so exact, Sternheim said, that “guards forbid” Maxwell from standing in certain areas of her six-foot-by-nine-foot cell, comprising telling her not to stand to the left or right over her toilet.
The lawyer also said that Maxwell “continues to contain serious problems with the food provided to her,” including repeatedly being denied some or all parts of her meals.
“For the duration of her captivity, she has never received a properly heated meal,” Sternheim wrote.
Maxwell is routinely given food in a container that is not designated for use in a microwave, but staff microwave her food anyway, the lawyer said.
“Ms. Maxwell’s food either does not defrost the bread or disintegrates it and melts the plastic container, rendering the food inedible,” Sternheim wrote.
“While guards finally accepted serious problems with the food, they continued to microwave Ms. Maxwell’s food, rendering the food inedible and harmful for consumption and leaving Ms. Maxwell with no meal and no replacement.”
“Late last week, guards informed Ms. Maxwell that prosperous forward her food will be heated in a thermal oven, like that of all other inmates. While this may be an repair, it does little to correct seven months of deprivation impacting her nutrition and detrimental to her health,” the lawyer wrote.
Sternheim also notorious that prosecutors have confirmed that guards point a flashight at the ceiling of Maxwell’s cell “every 15 flashes from approximately 9:30 pm to 6:30 am.”
“It is hard to verbally convey the power of a light that bounces off a concrete ceiling in a six-by-nine-foot literal box into Ms. Maxwell’s eyes, disrupting her sleep and ability to have any restful night.”
“The attenuating effects of sleep deprivation are ostentatiously documented,” the lawyer wrote.