A female inmate told at least three others she was offered money to strangle Ghislaine Maxwell as she slept. Photo / Jimi Celeste, Getty Images, File
A female inmate told at least three others she was offered money to strangle Ghislaine Maxwell as she slept. Photo / Jimi Celeste, Getty Images, File
Ghislaine Maxwell's cellmate planned to strangle her in her sleep for money, the socialite's lawyers have claimed as they pleaded with a US judge for a lenient sentence.
Maxwell's legal team made the allegation in a filing to a New York court, seeking a softer sentence than the 20 years recommended by the probation department over her role in financier Jeffrey Epstein's sex abuse of teenage girls.
They also sought to blame her father Robert Maxwell for her transgressions, claiming that childhood abuse he meted out left her vulnerable to exploitation by Epstein.
In a bombshell court filing, her attorneys framed their client as someone who has a "desire to do good in the world", adding that she was not a "vapid socialite" as they argued that she should be given a lesser sentence.
On the alleged death threats, they said: "One of the female inmates in Maxwell's housing unit told at least three other inmates that she had been offered money to murder Maxwell and that she planned to strangle her in her sleep. Maxwell has to live with this threat every day ..."
Epstein died in his Manhattan cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges, prompting prison authorities to place Maxwell, 60, in solitary confinement and under an "onerous" suicide watch after her 2020 arrest.
Jeffrey Epstein with Ghislaine Maxwell in a photograph submitted as evidence at her trial. Photo / Attorney for the Southern District of New York, File
Maxwell was found guilty in December of five out of the six charges in her trial, including sex trafficking a 14-year-old minor, and faces a maximum 55-year sentence when she goes before Judge Alison Nathan on June 28.
In its final report, the probation department recommended a 240-month prison term, less than the sentencing guidelines would otherwise call for.
In their plea, Maxwell's legal team highlighted her "exemplary" behaviour while held at the Brooklyn federal MDC jail, asking instead she be handed just a five-year sentence for her crimes.
The sentence of 51 to 63 months was appropriate as Maxwell has never been accused of any sex offences - or any crimes, for that matter - in the period since the conduct at issue in this case ended in 2006, the filing claims.
"Ghislaine Maxwell is not an heiress, villain or vapid socialite," the lawyers wrote. "She has worked hard her entire life. She has energy, drive, commitment, a strong work ethic, and desire to do good in the world."
They said leniency is deserved because she had a "difficult, traumatic childhood with an overbearing, narcissistic, and demanding father" that made her "vulnerable to Epstein, whom she met right after her father's death".
Lawyers then went into greater detail about apparent hardships she suffered as a child growing up in Oxfordshire.
They wrote about the effect felt by the Maxwell family when Ghislaine's 15-year-old brother Michael was seriously injured in a car accident.
"[The incident] transformed young Ghislaine's formative years. [She] was hardly given a glance and became anorexic while still a toddler. At age three, she stood in front of her mother and said simply, 'Mummy, I exist'."
After Robert Maxwell was elected as a member of Parliament, they wrote, he had little time for his nine children, only seeing them on Sundays.
They alleged that her father's work at one point made her the target of death threats, with her apparently finding herself the first name on an Irish Republican Army "hit list" for potential kidnap and assassination.
Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor Robert Maxwell was a member of parliament. Photo / Supplied, File
They claim Robert Maxwell's physical abuse paved the way for her to be manipulated by Epstein, her one-time boyfriend who went on to become one of the worst sex offenders in US history.
The document states: "[Robert] Maxwell employed corporal punishment on his children. Ghislaine vividly recalls a time when, at age 13, she tacked a poster of a pony on the newly painted wall of her bedroom. Rather than mar the paint with tape, she carefully hammered a thin tack to mount the poster. This outraged her father, who took the hammer and banged on Ghislaine's dominant hand, leaving it severely bruised and painful for weeks to come."
The lawyers also submitted letters written by Ghislaine's various family and friends attesting to her character, including sister Anne Halve, a psychotherapist, twin sisters Christine and Isabel, brothers Ian and Kevin, and Catherine Vaughan-Edwards, a friend, former employee, and the mother of Ghislaine's godson.
The prosecution intends to put on a number of victim impact statements to push Judge Nathan towards a higher sentence, including Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre, The Telegraph understands.
Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, then aged 17, and Ghislaine Maxwell at her townhouse in London. Photo /Supplied, File
Ghislaine's lawyers claimed that she is being punished in the place of Epstein, and urged the court not to be influenced by "this inexorable drumbeat of public condemnation calling for her to be locked away for good".
"In the face of strong media and public uproar following Epstein's death, the government faced an urgency to appease the renewed distress of Epstein's accusers and to repair the tarnished reputations of the DOJ (Department of Justice) and BOP (Bureau of Prisons) in whose custody Epstein died," they wrote.
"There would be no trial for Epstein and no public vindication and justice for his accusers. The government now had a huge hole to fill: Epstein's empty chair."
