Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been moved from a prison in Florida to a minimum security facility in Texas, the Bureau of Prisons said Friday, triggering an angry reaction from some of their victims.
No reason was given for Maxwell’s transfer but it comes a week after a top Justice Department official met with her to ask questions about Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for allegedly sex trafficking underage girls.
“We can confirm Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas,” a Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, interviewed Maxwell for two days at a Florida courthouse last week in a highly unusual meeting between a convicted felon and high-ranking Justice official.
Blanche has declined so far to say what was discussed but Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, said she answered every question she was asked.
Maxwell has offered to testify before Congress about Epstein if given immunity and has also reportedly been seeking a pardon from Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein.
She had been subpoenaed to give a deposition to the House Oversight Committee on August 11, but Politico reported Friday it had been postponed indefinitely.
The former British socialite is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein.
Two women who said they were sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell and the family of another accuser who recently committed suicide condemned the prison transfer.
“It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received,” Annie and Maria Farmer and the family of Virginia Giuffre said in a statement Friday.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency,” they said.
“Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas,” they said. “This move smacks of a cover-up. The victims deserve better.”
– ‘Cover-up in real time’ –
Tim Hogan, a senior Democratic National Committee advisor, also denounced what he alleged was a “government cover-up in real time.”
“Donald Trump’s FBI, run by loyalist Kash Patel, redacted Trump’s name from the Epstein files — which have still not been released,” Hogan said.
“While Trump and his administration try to cover up the heinous crimes included in those files, they’re simultaneously doing favors for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Trump is facing mounting demands from Democrats and many of his conspiracy-minded Make America Great Again supporters to be more transparent about the case of the wealthy and well-connected Epstein.
Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said last month that Epstein had committed suicide while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list.”
The president raised further questions this week as he told reporters he fell out with Epstein after the financier “stole” female employees from the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
One of those girls was Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave and committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.
Giuffre’s family issued a statement this week appealing to Trump not to consider pardoning Maxwell, who they called a “monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life.”
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