Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend claimed by her lawyer Tuesday {that a} guard bodily abused her at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, after which she was punished for complaining about it.
Legal professional Bobbi Sternheim wrote in a letter to a Manhattan federal choose that the abuse occurred lately on the Metropolitan Detention Heart as Ghislaine Maxwell was present process a pat down search in her isolation cell.
The lawyer mentioned the British socialite requested {that a} digicam be used to seize what was occurring, however a guard “replied `no.”’
“When Ms. Maxwell recoiled in ache and when she mentioned she would report the mistreatment, she was threatened with disciplinary motion,” Sternheim mentioned.
Days later, Maxwell was retaliated towards for reporting the abuse when a guard ordered her right into a bathe to scrub, sanitize, and scrub the partitions with a brush, the lawyer mentioned. She added that Maxwell was denied a request that the encounter with the guard within the tight house be recorded.
A spokesperson for prosecutors declined remark. A message looking for remark was despatched to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Maxwell, 59, is awaiting a July trial on expenses that she recruited three teenage women for Epstein to sexually abuse within the Nineteen Nineties and dedicated perjury throughout 2016 depositions in a civil case. She has pleaded not responsible.
She has remained incarcerated with out bail since July, when she was arrested virtually precisely a yr after Epstein was arrested to face intercourse trafficking expenses. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail a month after his arrest.
In late December, a choose rejected a $28.5 million bail proposal for Maxwell, saying she was a threat to flee and was not forthcoming with authorities about her funds after her arrest.
As a part of the bail proposal, legal professionals mentioned Maxwell had about $22.5 million in property along with her husband and had put aside over $7 million for her defence.
In Tuesday’s letter, Sternheim repeated assertions made earlier than that Maxwell is being subjected to onerous circumstances that embody repeated searches and being woke up each quarter-hour by a light-weight flashed into her cell when she sleeps. The lawyer mentioned the jail is reacting to Epstein’s suicide.
Sternheim mentioned Maxwell has been bodily searched roughly 1,400 occasions within the final seven months and no contraband has ever been discovered regardless of a whole bunch of bodily searches of the cell the place she lives alone in addition to her locker, authorized papers, and private results.
She mentioned her shopper is underneath 24-hour surveillance by two-to-six guards and roughly 18 cameras, not together with a hand-held digicam skilled on her when she is moved outdoors the cell.
In the meantime, harsh therapy that features meals so poorly ready that it typically can’t be eaten has taken a toll, the lawyer mentioned.
“She is withering to a shell of her former self — losing a few pounds, shedding hair, and shedding her means to pay attention,” Sternheim wrote. “Along with the numerous difficulties impacting her evaluate of digital discovery supplies, the over-management and stress are impacting her stamina and effectiveness in making ready her defence and conferring with counsel.”
© 2021 The Canadian Press
