Ghislaine Maxwell outsourced sex acts for Jeffrey Epstein, jury hears
NEW YORK — Ghislaine Maxwell spoke in a baby voice and outsourced sex acts for her boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein because she couldn’t keep up with his all-consuming libido, an anonymous witness told a jury on Monday at the British socialite’s trial.
“She said he needed to have sex about three times a day,” the witness, who testified under the pseudonym “Kate,” told jurors in Manhattan federal court.
The witness remembered how Maxwell once asked “if I knew anybody who would come and give Jeffrey a blow job because it was a lot for her.”
Now 44, Kate said she was 17 when she first met Maxwell in Paris in 1994. She took the stand as a witness and not a victim, per a court ruling secured by Maxwell’s lawyers, as Kate was not legally considered a minor when she first began giving Epstein sexualized massages as a teen.
Soon after their first meeting in France, Maxwell would invite Kate over for tea at her London townhouse.
The witness told jurors she looked up to the Oxford-educated Maxwell, who boasted about being friends with people like Prince Andrew and Donald Trump.
Kate said her understanding was that Maxwell was Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend and was responsible for taking care of his needs — and “making sure everything was the way Jeffrey liked it to be.”
Not long after their tea date, Kate testified, Maxwell called and said Epstein’s massage therapist had canceled and she needed someone in a pinch to fill the slot.
Then 17 and working as a model, Kate had no experience working as a masseuse, she said. Nevertheless, she agreed to do it.
Maxwell told the teen she’d be a good fit “because I had such strong hands,” Kate testified. “She said that he needed massages all the time and that it was difficult to keep up.”
Kate, who spoke with an English accent and sometimes took long pauses before answering the prosecutor’s questions, described walking into a dimly lit room inside Maxwell’s upscale townhouse in London’s tony Belgravia neighborhood.
There, Epstein lay in a robe and nothing else. Maxwell handed her some massage oil and closed the door, the witness said, leaving the 17-year-old alone with the financier.
Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz, Kate affirmed Epstein engaged in a sex act with her. She did not detail its nature, per the court’s ruling.
“She said, ‘How did it go? Did you have fun? Was it good?’” recalled Kate of Maxwell’s demeanor after the massage. “She seemed very excited and happy and she thanked me again.”
Referencing a second sexualized encounter with Epstein — this one at his Palm Beach, Florida, villa when she was around 18 — Kate recalled how Maxwell made her dress up in a schoolgirl outfit with a short, pleated skirt, white socks, white underwear and a skirt.
“I thought it would be fun for you to take Jeffrey his tea” in the outfit, Kate said Maxwell told her.
In court on Monday, Maxwell, wearing a dark gray-green turtleneck, avoided eye contact with Kate, looking at her notepad or whispering in the ear of her attorney Christian Everdell.
Kate said she would ultimately end up in Epstein and Maxwell’s orbit for more than a decade, not breaking loose until she was in her early 30s.
She described Maxwell’s attitude before and after the massages as strange, recalling how Epstein’s chief recruiter often spoke to her in a baby voice.
“Her demeanor was very, I would say it was almost like a small girl. I almost felt like ... she was younger than me. It was odd. Everything was fun and everything was silly,” the witness darkly recalled. “Everything seemed to be like a fun silly joke.”
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that she engineered Epstein’s life of crime from 1994 to 2004 by trafficking teens and young women to sleep with him at his properties worldwide. She faces separate charges of lying about the conduct under oath.
The 59-year-old contests the government has scapegoated her in Epstein’s absence as he killed himself while in custody and can no longer be brought to justice.
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