Jury deliberations resume at Ghislaine Maxwell trial
Judge Alison Nathan, upper left, reads instructions to the jury, located in the jury box on the right, during Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial, Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, in New York. Maxwell's family, foreground, including Isabel Maxwell, right, Ian Maxwell, center and Christine Maxwell, look on. [Elizabeth Williams via AP]
A jury resumed deliberations Tuesday at the sex trafficking trial of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
The jury in Manhattan federal court went back to work in a large room where they could spread out for coronavirus safety reasons as soon as all 12 jurors arrived in the morning.
They had begun their deliberations late Monday after closing arguments consumed most of the day, but they worked less than an hour before going home.
They are deciding whether Maxwell, 59, assisted her former financier boyfriend in the sexual abuse of teenage girls from 1994 to 2004. Prosecutors say she recruited and groomed the girls, making them feel that sexualized massages of Epstein were normal behavior.
Maxwell’s lawyers say the government has used her as a scapegoat after Epstein killed himself in 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking trial of his own.’
She has been held without bail since her July 2019 arrest.