Warning: This story contains graphic and distressing content.
As President Donald Trump struggles to contain the fallout over his ties to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, lawmakers on Capitol Hill and officials within his own administration are turning to Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier’s longtime co-conspirator and sometime girlfriend.
Unlike Epstein, Maxwell is still, potentially, able to talk.
And everyone knows right where to find her: in federal prison.
Just this week, Justice Department officials traveled to the facility in Florida where she is serving out a 20-year sentence, and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer issued her a subpoena compelling her testimony.
Epstein exploded back into the national conversation this month after the Justice Department issued a memo suggesting there was no reason to release any more federal records about him because there was no evidence he kept a so-called “client list” or blackmailed any prominent figures.
It is widely known that Epstein sexually abused a long succession of young women and girls, many of whom were underage and some of whom were, allegedly, as young as 11 and 12. He and Maxwell were also known to socialize with executives, presidents, royals and other wealthy elites.
What is less known is who participated in the abuse, or knew about it and did nothing.
Trump and officials in his administration, such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, had repeatedly made promises to release the so-called “Epstein files.” Now that they have backed off, some of Trump’s supporters have been left fuming.
Maxwell could be the key to members of the public finally getting the answers they seek. Here’s why.
Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?
First things first: In English, her name is most commonly pronounced “GEE-lane.”
Maxwell, 63, was born in France to British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, who was found dead in the Atlantic Ocean under somewhat mysterious circumstances in 1991. It turned out Robert’s companies had been having financial problems and he was using his workers’ pensions to keep lenders at bay.
Robert Maxwell doted on his youngest daughter; the yacht he is believed to have fallen from was called the Lady Ghislaine. She grew up in a 50-room mansion named Headington Hill Hall.
By the time of her father’s death, Ghislaine Maxwell had already been dispatched to New York City to help save a struggling New York Daily News, which he owned. She opted to stay in the city long-term, according to the BBC, finding London uncomfortable in the wake of her late father’s pension scandal.
Maxwell repeatedly defended him, telling Vanity Fair in 1992, “He wasn’t a crook.”
She appears to have met Epstein around the same time that she settled into the New York social scene.
How was she involved with Jeffrey Epstein?
When they met, Epstein was becoming very wealthy, and Maxwell was used to being very wealthy. She and Epstein were frequently photographed together over the years, from the 1990s through the 2000s, attending parties with other rich and famous individuals of all stripes.
Maxwell is described as a former girlfriend and current “best friend” in a 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Epstein, which notes that Maxwell “seems to organize much of his life.”
A lot of what we presently know about the pair comes from lawsuits, particularly a defamation suit brought against Maxwell by Virginia Giuffre, who became Epstein and Maxwell’s most vocal accuser before her death by suicide earlier this year.
Hundreds of pages of unsealed court documents related to Giuffre’s suit revealed how she was recruited by Maxwell in 2000 at age 16 while working at the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the South Florida resort owned by Trump. Giuffre said in her deposition that Maxwell told her she knew someone looking for a private masseuse and, if it worked out, she would travel and make good money.
Giuffre took the job and said that “massage” ended up being code for “sex.” She said she was made to have sex with not just Epstein, but many of his high-powered friends, such as Britain’s Prince Andrew. (The prince denies the charge.)
“My whole life revolved around just pleasing these men and keeping Ghislaine and Jeffrey happy,” Giuffre said in her deposition. “Their whole entire lives revolved around sex. They call massages sex. They call modeling sex.”
A butler who used to work for Epstein, Alfredo Rodriguez, said in a sworn statement that he saw many girls he suspected to be underage come in and out of Epstein’s Palm Beach home to give massages. (They ate a lot of cereal and milk, he said, reminding him of his own teen daughter.)
Maxwell also stayed at the house. Another staffer, John Alessi, said in a deposition that he used to drive Maxwell from spa to spa looking for massage therapists who could come to Epstein’s home.
Maxwell was accused of following the same playbook in New York, Paris, London and elsewhere; Epstein also owned a private island in the Caribbean, called Little St. James, and a ranch in New Mexico.
Established recruits were supposed to find other girls their age to work as supposed massage therapists.
Accusers say that Maxwell sometimes participated in the sexual abuse herself.
Giuffre called Maxwell and Epstein “one and the same of persons.”
“Ghislaine and Jeffrey worked together,” she said.
Maxwell has denied Giuffre’s allegations.
What was Ghislaine Maxwell charged with?
Maxwell was arrested and charged in 2020 with several trafficking-related charges, including conspiracy to entice minors into illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport them for that purpose, sex trafficking a minor, sex trafficking conspiracy and transporting a minor to engage in sex acts. The crimes discussed at the trial took place between 1994 and 2004.
She was found guilty in December 2021, and sentenced in June 2022 to 20 years behind bars.
Four victims testified at her trial: Annie Farmer, the only one to use her real name, and three anonymous women called Jane, Kate and Carolyn. They spoke about being recruited by Maxwell or Giuffre as teens, and how they were conditioned to accept Epstein’s sexual advances because they were so young.
The victims said that the presence of a woman — Maxwell — reassured them that Epstein’s behavior was somehow acceptable.
Carolyn gave particularly emotional testimony, telling the court she was just 14 and struggling at home when Giuffre told her she could make a lot of money by working for Epstein. Carolyn said she stopped at age 18, when she “became too old.” Early on, she said, Maxwell felt her breasts and other parts of her, and told her she “had a great body for Epstein and his friends.”
Prosecutors said that Maxwell normalized the activity by talking about sex, undressing in front of the victims, being present when they undressed and encouraging them to use sex toys.
Maxwell also encouraged the victims to accept things like travel and educational opportunities from Epstein, making the girls feel like the pair were genuinely trying to help them.
Her siblings have stood behind her throughout her legal troubles, supporting her bid for a retrial after it emerged that one of the jurors had mistakenly failed to disclose that he had been sexually abused as a child. The juror was reportedly key to helping his peers understand that just because a victim’s memory of abuse is imperfect, that does not mean the abuse did not happen.
How wealthy is she?
After her arrest, made at a New Hampshire mansion where she had been hiding out, a judge deemed Maxwell a huge flight risk due in part to questions over her financial situation. Prosecutors said they had linked her to at least 15 different bank accounts over the years, worth, at times, more than $20 million, as money from accounts associated with Epstein was moved to the accounts associated with her.
Prosecutors said her financial status was “opaque and indeterminate.”
Where is Ghislaine Maxwell now?
The facility where Maxwell has been locked up for the last three years is a low-security prison in Tallahassee. She reportedly had some trouble in 2023 when two other prisoners attempted to blackmail her into spending her commissary funds on them, as they had discovered her secret arrangement with a kitchen worker to obtain more fruit and vegetables.
Since then, Maxwell has been moved to the facility’s “honor dorm” for good behavior, allowing her a slightly nicer room, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. She even reportedly taught an etiquette class.
The conditions are a marked improvement from the time she was first arrested; Maxwell was placed in solitary confinement at a New York detention facility for around two years from the time of her arrest until shortly before her sentencing.
Will her testimony be useful?
Maxwell is still consulting with her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, about the extent to which she will cooperate with Congress or invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also said that his office may make public some information about his talks with Maxwell.
But there are questions about whether she will tell the truth, or attempt to give answers that might please the one person who could hand her a get-out-of-jail-free card: Trump.
“I would say I have a lot of doubt about Ghislaine Maxwell’s truthfulness, and her motives and what she’s going to say, and what they’re going to release about what she said,” Aitan Goelman, an attorney who knows both Blanche and Markus, told CNN on Thursday.
Markus has insisted otherwise on behalf of his client.
“If Ms. Maxwell agrees to testify before Congress and not take the 5th — and that remains a big if — she would testify truthfully, as she always has said she would and as she will with [Blanche],” Markus said on social media.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.