By now, all of the rich and famous young men accused of sexual offenses involving a then-30-year-old Jeffrey Epstein have gone on trial or pleaded guilty. The women involved, now mostly in their 30s, have been extensively profiled and probed over the last few years for their alleged role in Epstein’s illicit sex trafficking ring. Some of them, like Epstein, have reached deals with prosecutors to serve short sentences with no restitution or other penalties.
Others like Ghislaine Maxwell (named in 2013 after a judge unsealed documents that claimed she “was a lover of Jeffrey Epstein’s for years”), a business associate of Epstein who at one point was one of his alleged victims and claimed she was actually involved in the scheme, are going to trial.
Maxwell, in a rare appearance in public, took the stand during Epstein’s original trial in 2007, which was ended before it started after prosecutors and a judge said the investigation was botched. [See A Day in the Life of Ghislaine Maxwell (By the Numbers)]
“According to the complainant, we ran an illicit international sex ring,” Maxwell testified at the time. “The alleged victims were arranged to travel for sex with certain individuals in this defendant’s home.”
Pearson recounted how Epstein had invited her to Epstein’s rental mansion with the intent of having sex with her, and told her to pay up to $1,000. [See 26 Questions for Ghislaine Maxwell (By the Numbers)]
The prosecution in the 2007 case said the claims were false, and that Barron had shown up, in handcuffs, at a home in suburban Baltimore, where both he and Epstein were arrested. Barron, who had been locked up in a jail in Polk County, Florida, was later transported to Baltimore on extradition requests from Florida.
According to Barron’s testimony, Maxwell had told Barron to lie to authorities, claiming she was a different girl when they were connected. Maxwell, Barron said, then gave him some words that prosecutors relied on in obtaining a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty and received house arrest.
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According to Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony, Barron lied under oath as well. She told the court of how she traveled for sex from California to New York and then to England. She said she agreed to travel by Ellis Island in exchange for $1,000.
“Jeffrey Epstein and I met at my father’s yacht,” Maxwell testified. “I was introduced to him through my father, who is a very wealthy man, at a party for my birth anniversary.”
The deposition also shows that Barron gave Mercer 1,300 points on a series of cards, which Mercer used to make purchases. Mercer, for his part, left the game to the most famous female chess player of the time, Albertina Shulova, the Center for Media and Democracy reports.
“As I flipped my cards from the back of the pack one after another, he noticed his appreciation of chess. The higher the number, the more my points I could buy with the dollars I was given by Epstein,” Mercer said of Barron in a deposition.
The Center for Media and Democracy was able to obtain the deposition using a Freedom of Information Act request that was specifically targeted to Barron’s bail.
“It was as if Ghislaine Maxwell set out to destroy me,” Mercer said in the deposition.
While Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony is quite interesting, given her links to the people caught up in the trial, it does not ultimately answer the real question. To bring in the big money, it wasn’t enough for Barron to lie under oath, but he also had to take the witness stand as a witness to say it all.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony, which I have never seen, could certainly be another puff piece to get this lady any further in show business and into more luxury hotels, or worse, to paint her as the money grabbing party girl that she is, when the evidence points toward the opposite.
Juan Williams is a writer and Fox News political analyst.