Bombshell dossier on Ghislaine Maxwell's links to Jeffrey Epstein released by US judge
22 October 2020, 16:02 | Updated: 22 October 2020, 16:31
Depositions made by Ghislaine Maxwell about her links to Jeffrey Epstein have been released following a court battle.
A judge ordered the release of the 418-page dossier from 2016 which reveals that socialite Maxwell denied hiring anyone under the age of 18 for Epstein, when she was questioned about his interactions with underage girls.
Manhattan US District judge Loretta A Preska ordered that the transcripts of seven hours of depositions by Maxwell should be released today.
Maxwell told investigators: "I never saw any inappropriate underage activities with Jeffrey ever."
Judge Preska allowed the release of the transcripts after rejecting arguments from Maxwell's lawyers that the interviews for a defamation case brought against their client by an Epstein victim several years ago would jeopardise a fair criminal trial for her next July.
Maxwell, 58, has been held without bail since her July arrest on charges that she procured three underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 1997.
She has pleaded not guilty.
The 2016 transcripts were among more than 2,000 pages of documents that began to be released last year after an appeals court began the unsealing of documents from the since-settled defamation case brought in 2015 by Virginia Giuffre.
She has accused Maxwell of recruiting her at the age of 17 and that she was sexually abused from 1999 to 2002.
Ms Giuffre has accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous wealthy and influential men, who have denied the accusations.
The transcripts reveal Maxwell repeatedly derided Giuffre, saying: "She has lied repeatedly."
She said she "never instructed Virginia to have sex with anybody, ever".
Asked if she trained Ms Giuffre to recruit other women to perform sexual massages, Maxwell said: "It's absurd and her entire story is one giant tissue of lies."
Epstein was 66 when he killed himself in jail in Manhattan in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.