Part 4: Ghislaine Maxwell's Defense Strategy Utterly Collapses
And once Maxwell is convicted, where does the SDNY's PCU Epstein investigation go from there?
Just over a week ago, the defense team for accused child sex groomer and trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was busy making brave noises to the media about what they were going to do once the prosecution rested and they got to begin presenting their case to the jury.
It was claimed that the defense would be calling over 35 witnesses, something that would naturally take weeks of courtroom testimony to do.
I was looking forward to seeing what kind of defense her team could mount, given that they’ve already been forced into the admission that Jeffrey Epstein was a literal monster, a child sex predator and rapist.
Trapped by all the crude physical evidence recovered by federal authorities from Epstein’s island home, his New York City mansion as well as his New Mexico ranch, the defense team has had to craft a stilted defense that completely absolves Maxwell while tacitly admitting the awful truth about Epstein.
No Attempt To Minimize Epstein’s Crimes
At no time has Maxwell or her lawyers advance any claim whatsoever that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t do it, is misunderstood, or that his decades-long sex trafficking wasn’t really as bad as it seemed. Thus far in this trial there has been no attempt at all to mitigate or downplay Epstein’s crimes.
Instead, it became apparent that the key theme of the defense that Maxwell’s lawyers would attempt to make is this: that all of the evil ogre Epstein’s child raping and sex trafficking went on around Maxwell and in close proximity to her for 20+ years while she somehow remained completely oblivious to it.
She heard nothing.
She saw nothing.
She knew nothing.
I’ve been pointing out for some time just how extremely skeptical I am of even a crack defense team getting a jury to buy into this narrative.
He’s a monster….she’s an angel.
He’s 100% guilty…she is completely innocent.
He was craftily raping underage girls behind her back for over 20 years and she never realized it.
The jury is supposed to buy into the idea that Jeffrey Epstein was just that good at hiding his true nature from the woman at his elbow, his devoted Girl Friday, for decades.
Tall order.
No matter how able or competent they might otherwise be, I don’t think Maxwell’s defense team is going to be able to pull this magic trick off.
She would have been far better off working out a cooperative deal with the Southern District of New York’s Public Corruption Unit for a reduced sentence. I’m sure Maxwell’s lawyers strongly urged her to do that, if they were seeking the best interests of their client.
Well if that was the case, she very apparently did not listen to that advice and insisted on pleading not guilty and taking her chances with a jury trial. A very dangerous proposition indeed, given that she is facing a maximum of 80 years in prison, should she be convicted of all the charges she’s facing.
Media Coverage of This Trial Has Been Very Far Off the Mark
Most media coverage on the political Right of the trial has focused on disappointed expectations for what various news outlets and reporters were hoping would arise out of the proceedings rather than what’s been happening in the trial itself. This why so much of the public perception of what’s about to happen is so far off the mark.
I’ve read more than a few media pieces about the trial that are far more fixated on what hasn’t happened in the trial than what has gone on in the courtroom. Long diatribes about how the trial is some kind of cover-up, and that at it’s conclusion Maxwell will be acquitted of all charges, or at the very worst afforded the same kind of light slap on the wrist that was afforded to Epstein in Florida back in 2009.
It would help to remember what the point of the trial actually is, rather than what it is not.
The point of the trial is to present evidence to a jury that far from being an innocent associate of Epstein’s who was kept in the dark about his nefarious activities, Ghislaine Maxwell was intimately involved in the selection, grooming, transportation and subsequent sexual abuse of four specific underage minors.
As has usually happened in such cases where there are more than a dozen victims, the prosecution selected four victims to present to the jury rather than spending weeks running through an endless train of victims, each with pretty much the same sad story to tell.
Many serial rapists are convicted in court of only a handful of the sexual assaults they committed and are then sent to prison for the rest of their lives. If that sounds strange to you, that the prosecutors are not forced to run through the exhaustive list of every single known victim of the defendant, bringing every one of them into the courtroom to recount for the jury their traumatic assault in order to obtain a conviction, you don’t much understand these kind of cases.
That’s not how it works. The prosecution is only required to demonstrate sufficient evidence of multiple instances of the same felony crime that victimized multiple persons. Even if there are more than 25 victims, providing evidence and testimony of 4 of the victims in court is sufficient to obtain a conviction.
Since many news commentators on this trial seem to have expected to see a parade of numerous trafficking victims to the stand in this trial, they expressed shock and outrage that the prosecution limited itself to just four. It is claimed limiting the number of girls groomed and exploited by Maxell and Epstein at this trial is just another sign it’s one big cover-up. That’s an incredibly bad take, and the people who’ve been making it are going to be very surprised when Maxwell is convicted of most if not all of the charges.
False Memory Expert Makes Dubious Claims
Maxwell’s team began it’s defense of her by calling a self described ‘false memory expert’ from Stanford University named Elisabeth Loftus to the stand to attempt to create reasonable doubt about the stories related to the jury by the defendant’s four victims.
As with everything else in Maxwell’s defense strategy, what Loftus attempted to sell to the jury was highly incoherent.
Loftus, who is a psychologist, claimed that while it may be true that Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused these four women when they were underage minors, they have gone on to create ‘false memories’ of Maxwell having participated with Epstein in their abuse.
The claim is that although Maxwell brought these four girls to Epstein, or was nearby when Epstein assaulted them, she not only did not participate in the sexual abuse, she was completely unaware of it, and over the years the trauma these victims suffered led them to create false memories in which Maxwell became a direct participate in the crime.
Loftus suggested to the jury that a trusted person such as an attorney or law enforcement officer can induce false memories in someone through asking them leading or suggestive questions; the inference being that the four victims who testified in this trial are not really lying but instead have been cynically manipulated by those out to ‘get’ Ghislaine Maxwell into ‘remembering’ things that did not really happen.
So the jury is being asked to believe that Maxwell stupidly and blindly ended up delivering multiple underage minors into serial rapist Epstein’s nefarious clutches, but then had no idea he assaulted them, and now all these years later these poor girls have had false memories created in their heads by investigators out to convict Maxwell of crimes she didn’t commit.
That’s a hard sell if you ask me, and I don’t think the jury will buy it.
After starting off with a problematic presentation from their expert witness on false memories, the defense team went on to make a most unusual request of the federal judge presiding over this case.
The Defense Asks For Anonymity For Several Key Defense Witnesses
The defense team led by Bobbie Sternheim threw judge Alison Nathan a curve ball when they suddenly asked in a court filing that several of the key witnesses they intended to call be allowed to testify to the jury in complete anonymity.
Ponder that for a minute.
Without revealing to the jury hearing this case who they are or what exactly their relationship is to Ghislaine Maxwell, multiple defense witnesses wanted to testify about what a great person she is and how she couldn’t possibly have committed the crimes she’s accused of.
Naturally, Judge Nathan took little time in rejecting this absurd request.
The first thing a character or fact witness is asked when they take the stand in a criminal or civil trial is who they are and what their relationship is to the plaintiff or defendant in the case. That knowledge is then used by the jury to weigh the person’s testimony.
In some cases victims of sexual or violent crimes are allowed to testify anonymously. But a character or fact witness for the defense has an extremely high hurdle to clear before they will also be allowed to testify for the defendant without revealing who they are or what their prior relationship was to the accused.
If a person is allowed to testify to the jury about the character of the defendant, or a fact in the case against the defendant, while being anonymous, the testimony is essentially worthless.
A Sudden Curious Reversal
After Judge Nathan made her ruling and informed Maxwell’s lawyers that several key defense witnesses would not be allowed to testify anonymously, a curious reversal suddenly occurred.
All that brave talk to the media about calling 35 witnesses over the next several weeks quickly evaporated. Instead, Maxwell suddenly announced to Judge Nathan that she would not be taking the stand and then the defense rested it’s case.
This means the closing arguments in the trial began today, Monday December 20th, and are likely underway already as I’m writing this. The jury could get the case as early as tomorrow, Tuesday. If they cannot reach a verdict by Thursday the 24th, there would be a Christmas break until next week, when they would have four more days to deliberate before the arrival of the 31st and New Years Eve.
What led to the sudden collapse of Maxwell’s defense strategy?
It seems to me that a key part of her defense was going to be an attempt to get some testimony before the jury from some anonymous witnesses, and when they found they were not going to be allowed to do that, it was game over. They were then forced to rest and hope that Dr. Loftus The False Memory Expert had managed to create enough reasonable doubt with the members of the jury.
What Will The Jury’s Verdict Be?
Well I think there’s little suspense as to that. Maxwell is going to be found guilty of most, if not all of the charges. The defense strategy she attempted was, at it’s foundational level, incoherent.
However, I do not see Judge Nathan sentencing her to the maximum 80 years if she’s convicted on all charges. Maxwell will likely get something between 40 and 60 years in federal prison.
And not at a Club Fed, either. Anybody who thinks the grand ‘Deep State Plan’ was to repeat the fiasco in 2009 of Epstein’s sweet sweet sweetheart deal with the whole world watching this time is either confused or punking you.
And you can quote me on that.
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The feds won’t let her off lightly. The world is watching and they can feel the changes. They think it might not be too late to absolve themselves, so they’re playing this by the book. I see so many realizing they are so screwed. Massive resignations from government. That’s a pretty great barometer. And the CEOs resigning is laughable. They’re probably scrambling to hide assets but it’s way too late for that.
Good stuff Brian thank you