Jeffrey Epstein's victim wants Ghislaine Maxwell kept in custody

One or more victims of Jeffrey Epstein plan to tell a judge Tuesday that his ex-girlfriend should be denied bail on charges that she recruited teenage girls for him to sexually abuse in the 1990s, prosecutors said Monday.

Prosecutors made the revelation in court papers as they argued there is no reason to free Ghislaine Maxwell on bail.

The 58-year-old British socialite has been held without bail since her recent arrest at a New Hampshire estate she bought late last year.

Prosecutors told a Manhattan federal judge in written arguments that at least one woman and possibly more were expected to exercise their right to appear at Tuesday's hearing and ask that Maxwell be detained until trial.

The Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York where Ghislaine Maxwell has been held. AP Photo / Mark Lennihan

"The Government is deeply concerned that if the defendant is bailed, the victims will be denied justice in this case," prosecutors wrote. The filing came a day before an arraignment and bail hearing for Maxwell, who has been held for the past week at a federal jail in Brooklyn.

On Friday, her lawyers filed arguments that said she was being made a scapegoat after Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan lockup last August. They said she should be freed on US$5 million bail with electronic monitoring.

"Ghislaine Maxwell," they wrote, "is not Jeffrey Epstein."

They said their client denies any allegations of misconduct, has had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade and has never been charged with a crime or found liable in civil litigation stemming from the allegations against Epstein.

Jeffrey Epstein was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges of women and girls in Florida and New York but died in custody. AP Photo / New York State Sex Offender Registry

Prosecutors noted that Maxwell's defence lawyers proposed offering as collateral property their client owns in the United Kingdom, but they said that was beyond the reach of US authorities.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges of women and girls in Florida and New York in the early 2000s when he died by suicide in custody.