Ghislaine Maxwell trial

https://apnews.com/article/business-jeffrey-epstein-new-york-manhattan-ghislaine-maxwell-5efc2669c57697b6c5c65b148cf315b7 Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to charges she groomed underage victims to have unwanted sex with Epstein. She has vehemently denied wrongdoing. “I have not committed any crime,” the jailed Maxwell blurted out at a recent pretrial conference. She was made to wear shackles coming and going from the courtroom, accentuating the severity of the allegations — although the restraints were gone at a hearing last week. The questioning of jurors by Judge Alison J. Nathan begins Tuesday as a pool of over 600 potential jurors is whittled down to 12 — and six alternates — just before opening statements start Nov. 29 in Maxwell’s highly anticipated trial. Epstein, who died at 66, was arrested on multiple sex trafficking charges in New York in 2019. His lawyers contended the charges violated a 2008 non-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in Miami that secretly ended a federal sex abuse probe involving at least 40 teenage girls. ... Prosecutors say there’s evidence Maxwell knew that the victims, including a 14-year-old, were below the age of consent and arranged travel for some between Epstein’s homes. Defense lawyers are still trying to reduce or eliminate the testimony of one of the four because she was 17 at the time in a jurisdiction where that wasn’t legally underage. And prosecutors this past weekend asked the judge to let them reveal to the jury statements Epstein made to an employee about Maxwell’s involvement with procuring underage girls. The indictment said Maxwell “would try to normalize sexual abuse for a minor victim by, among other things, discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein.” ... One called Maxwell “a sexual predator who groomed and abused me and countless other children and young women.” In a statement read aloud by a prosecutor, another said, “Without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did.”

Just a reminder. Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jeffrey-epstein-guards-falsifying-records-1.6037236

From a first glance I can already see she is guilty for just associating with Epstein's actions on this. She knew what she did in this case.

https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=21119191-maxwell-superseding-indictment

Ah, child groomers. I had to learn how to identify grooming activity in the boy scout leadership program. (We were required to earn that certification in larp since we were on a boy scout camp and include minors in our events.) Just remember, it can be very hard to definitively say if certain acts are child grooming, because grooming often disguises nefarious activity as normal. For us normal people, most of the time all we could do is mentally mark a red flag, and keep an eye out for any other actions that blur the boundaries. Should be interesting to see them bicker back and forth about that in the court of law. Given Epstein was a connection, I wonder if this will shed some insight on his suspicious connections with senators, congress, and presidents from Clinton to Trump. Brace yourselves, this will be a messy one.