New York (CNN)Jurors in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial have paused their deliberations till Monday morning in New York.
Maxwell, the frail girlfriend and longtime affiliate of the leisurely sex perpetrator Jeffrey Epstein, has pleaded no longer guilty to six federal counts, together with sex trafficking of a minor, spicy a minor to lumber to need in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor with the intent to need in prison sexual intercourse and three associated counts of conspiracy.
If convicted on all six counts, Maxwell faces up to 70 years in penal complex.
The jurors have been brushed off at 4: 30 p.m. on Wednesday with no verdict after roughly 16 hours of deliberating. They are anticipated to blueprint Monday at 9 a.m.
Maxwell will exercise her 60th birthday in federal penal complex in Brooklyn on Christmas Day.
She hugged her attorneys before being led out of the courtroom.
The jury deliberated for no longer up to an hour Monday and for roughly eight hours Tuesday. Within the deliberations, they’ve asked the courtroom three questions associated to testimony from the ladies folk who assemble the core of the case in opposition to Maxwell.
First, jurors asked the gain for the transcripts of testimonies from Annie Farmer, Carolyn and “Jane” — three of the four ladies folk who testified they have been sexually abused by Epstein and that Maxwell facilitated and occasionally participated within the abuse.
Jurors also asked for the FBI notes from a 2007 interview with Carolyn that the protection has acknowledged is inconsistent along with her testimony in courtroom. The FBI notes are no longer in evidence, however some excerpts have been read into the picture throughout her execrable-examination.
Extra, the jury asked whether it could perhaps truly truly gain into fable Farmer’s testimony for 2 of the conspiracy counts. Judge Alison Nathan acknowledged jurors could perhaps well well assemble so.
The deliberations cap a 3-week trial highlighted by testimony from the four ladies folk, who acknowledged Maxwell recruited and groomed them to be sexually abused by Epstein. The abuse allegedly came about when they have been youthful than 18, and their accusations stretched from 1994 to 2004.
Prosecutors sought to tie Maxwell and Epstein shut together and acknowledged her actions have been wanted to his abuse intention. The protection centered its case on prolonged execrable-examinations of the four accusers and attacked their motivations and memories of the alleged incidents. Maxwell declined to testify in her have protection.
Farmer, the staunch accuser to testify by her corpulent title, testified that she changed into 16 when Maxwell massaged her bare chest at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch in 1996.
Carolyn testified that when she changed into 14, Maxwell touched her breasts, hips and butt and told her she “had a apt body for Epstein and his website visitors.” The baby sex trafficking depend — the most severe of your total charges — relates to her testimony.
“Jane,” testifying beneath a pseudonym, acknowledged Maxwell organized sexual massages with Epstein and occasionally joined within the abuse. The spicy and transporting counts yell to testimony totally from her.
The fourth accuser, “Kate,” testified Maxwell invited her over and directed her give Epstein a sexual massage. She acknowledged Maxwell spoke in most cases of sexual matters along with her and asked Kate to invite assorted young ladies for Epstein’s sexual needs.
Epstein, an elusive financier who pleaded guilty in 2008 to articulate prostitution charges, changed into indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019 however died by suicide in penal complex a month later. Maxwell changed into arrested in 2020 and has been held on the abet of bars beneath shut search since.
What came about on the trial
In its closing argument, the prosecution acknowledged Maxwell’s shut relationship with Epstein and manipulative actions have been key to the worldwide abuse intention at his properties in New York, Florida, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands.
“A single middle-extinct man who invitations a teenage girl to search advice from his ranch, to map to his home, to fly to New York, is creepy,” prosecutor Allison Moe told jurors. “However when that man is accompanied by a posh, smiling, kindly, age-applicable girl, that’s when all the pieces begins to appear legit.
“And when that girl encourages those ladies to massage that man, when she acts admire it be totally traditional for the person to contact those ladies, it lures them right into a lure. It allows the person to silence the dread bells.”
Within the protection’s closing argument, lawyer Laura Menninger sought to distance Maxwell from Epstein and suggested he had manipulated her as successfully. She acknowledged the prosecution’s case is in step with speculation and distracting images of Maxwell with Epstein, together with several that trace her giving him a foot massage.
“She’s being tried here for being with Jeffrey Epstein, and perhaps that changed into the fantastic mistake of her life — however it changed into no longer against the law,” Menninger told the jury.
Menninger also went throughout the testimony of each and every accuser and highlighted inconsistencies of their timelines and their outdated interviews with law enforcement by which two of the victims, Carolyn and “Jane,” did now not mention Maxwell.
The lawyer suggested they misremembered what came about and acknowledged they’ll have changed their tales for money.
“Why would you drag a long time without pointing out Ghislaine Maxwell and by shock, while you want to well well presumably even have your deepest damage lawyer, you add her to the combo?” Menninger acknowledged.
Prosecutor Maurene Comey rejected those arguments in a rebuttal that alluded to broader societal and economic forces at play on this case.
“The defendant by no methodology thought that those teenage ladies would have the energy to picture what came about. In her eyes, they have been upright trash beneath her,” she acknowledged. “Those ladies would by no methodology arise to a vitality couple admire Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And within the event that they did, who would mediate them?”
