Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell slapped with fresh sex trafficking charges

Ghislaine Maxwell in 2014. Photo / Getty Images

Sex-trafficking charges and another alleged victim were added to a superseding indictment returned in the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell as prosecutors allege that a conspiracy to sexually abuse girls stretched over a decade.

The charges contained in a rewritten indictment returned by a grand jury in Manhattan federal court alleged that a conspiracy between financier Jeffrey Epstein's and his ex-girlfriend Maxwell occurred between 1994 and 2004. An indictment returned after Maxwell's July arrest limited crimes to a three-year period in the 1990s.

Maxwell, 59, has remained in a federal jail without bail after a judge three times rejected bail packages, the last of which included offers to renounce her citizenships in the United Kingdom and France, to be kept in place by armed guards and to post US$28.5 million in assets.

Maxwell, a US citizen, has pleaded not guilty to charges brought a year after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges. He killed himself at a Manhattan federal lockup in August 2019. A message for comment was sent to her lawyers. Maxwell has also appealed the bail rejections.

The rewritten indictment added a sex-trafficking conspiracy and a sex-trafficking charge against Maxwell.

It also added a fourth girl to the allegations, saying she was sexually abused multiple times by Epstein between 2001 and 2004 at his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, beginning when she was 14 years old.

The indictment said Maxwell groomed the girl to engage in sex acts with Epstein through multiple ways, including by giving her lingerie and hundreds of dollars in cash and by encouraging the girl to recruit other young females to provide "sexualised massages" to Epstein.

A photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at a July 2020 news conference called by the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Photo / AP

Earlier this year, Maxwell's lawyers challenged the charges against her, saying they were obtained unjustly and didn't properly allege crimes. They said the indictment also violates an agreement federal prosecutors made a dozen years ago not to charge Epstein or those who worked for him.

In a letter to a judge today, prosecutors acknowledged that the rewritten indictment may require defence lawyers to supplement their arguments to dismiss charges.

But the US government also promised not to bring another rewritten indictment against her if lawyers do not request to postpone a trial scheduled for July 12.