The New York Post says Ghislaine Maxwell cried as she was ordered held without bail Tuesday — with a Manhattan judge ruling the accused sex abuser “poses substantial actual risk of flight” after she purposely hid from authorities. The trial is not set until next summer so unless there is an appeal, Maxwell will be in a New York detention centre for another 12 months,
The 58-year-old British socialite and pal of late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein wiped tears from her left eye several times, using the back of her left index finger, as federal Judge Alison Nathan refused to free her from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn until her trial next year.
“No combination of conditions” could ensure that Maxwell wouldn’t try to flee prosecution, Nathan said during a video conference in Manhattan federal court — where Maxwell appeared on the feed remotely from a closet-size room at the jail.
“The risks are simply too great,” the judge said, adding that Maxwell has exhibited an “extraordinary capacity to evade detection.”
Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced late newspaper baron Robert Maxwell, briefly hung her head when it became clear that she wasn’t going to be released at all —much less to a luxury New York City hotel as she had requested — until trial.
Dressed in an olive-brown crewneck top with her hair pulled back, Maxwell occasionally sipped from a white styrofoam cup and fidgeted in her seat during the proceeding.
She faces charges that she conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse young women.
In siding with prosecutors, Nathan said there were no conditions of bail that could ensure Maxwell’s return to court, noting her “significant financial resources,” foreign connections and efforts to secretly move around the country following Epstein’s arrest last year.
The jurist said without a clear picture of Maxwell’s finances — which prosecutors argued were purposely obscured — “it is practically impossible to set financial bail conditions that would reasonably assure her appearance in court.”
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