Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell arrested
Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and onetime confidant and girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested in New Hampshire, the FBI said Thursday.
Maxwell had been sought by authorities in connection with allegations that she had helped procure young girls for sexual exploitation by Epstein, the financier who killed himself in a New York jail last year.
Maxwell, who lived for years with Epstein and was his frequent travel companion on trips around the world, was taken into custody about 8:30 a.m., said FBI spokesman Marty Feely.
Epstein killed himself in a federal detention center in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations have not, until now, resulted in criminal charges. The details of the charges against Maxwell weren't immediately revealed.
Messages were sent Thursday to several of Maxwell’s attorneys seeking comment. She has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some of the claims against her “absolute rubbish."
Among the most sensational accusations was a claim by one Epstein victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, that Maxwell arranged for her to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew at Maxwell's London townhouse. Giuffre bolstered her allegations with a picture of herself, the prince and Maxwell, which Giuffre said was taken at the time.
Andrew denied her story.
Maxwell was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the “highest-ranking employee” of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking enterprise. She oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal the activity from law enforcement, the lawsuit alleged.
