Jeffrey Epstein's 'compartmentalized' life made it impossible for Ghislaine Maxwell to know about his sex crimes, her brother says
- Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is set to face trial in November on sex-trafficking charges.
- Her brother told Insider in an interview that her relationship to Epstein has been exaggerated.
Ahead of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's federal trial, the accused sex predator's brother wants the public to know that she was never as close to the late, disgraced financier as most people believe.
"The idea that somehow Ghislaine would spend any time at all in this horrible sleazy, shitty world that we now know he was attracted to, is absurd," Ian Maxwell told Insider in an interview.
Ghislaine Maxwell is set to face trial in federal court in Manhattan in November on charges related to sex trafficking, grooming teenagers for sexual abuse, participating in sexual abuse herself, and lying about her actions in a deposition.
Prosecutors accuse her of committing these crimes in collaboration with Epstein, the well-connected, convicted sex offender who was arrested on related charges in 2019. Epstein killed himself in jail before his case went to trial.
Ian Maxwell, like his sister's lawyers, says Ghislaine Maxwell is innocent, and that federal prosecutors brought an indictment against her only because Justice Department officials were upset Epstein died on their watch.
He compared his sister to Leslie Wexner, the former Victoria's Secret CEO. Wexner also had a decades-long relationship with Epstein - one that helped Epstein amass wealth, private islands, personal jets, and connections to the rich and powerful - and also denies knowledge of his sex crimes.
"The idea that she would be some kind of a Madame - it really is grotesque," Ian Maxwell told Insider. "Jeffrey Epstein, it seems to me, led an immensely compartmentalized life."
Unsealed documents detail Maxwell's relationship with Epstein
The flurry of details about Ghislaine Maxwell's relationship with Epstein made public through litigation over the past few years create a false impression, Ian Maxwell told Insider.
Ghislaine Maxwell first met Epstein in 1991. In the ensuing decades, according to people who knew them, she had roles in his life as a girlfriend, household manager, business associate, and helicopter pilot.
According to her brother, Maxwell had an intimate relationship with Epstein for only a few years before their partnership transitioned into a professional one. At that point, her brother said, Maxwell had little insight into Epstein's depraved sex life.
"They didn't live together. They never lived together," Ian Maxwell said. "She had her place, he had his place. She didn't have a key to his place. He didn't have a key to her place."
Ian Maxwell said he was introduced to Epstein only once, for an hour-long lunch he believes happened around 1996. He described Epstein as reserved and not "particularly warm," but found him to be "an aggressive listener."
"I don't think he'd be somebody that I want to go out of my way to have a drink with," he said.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state charge of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. His plea deal included a non-prosecution agreement for co-conspirators, which Ghislaine Maxwell's attorneys have argued shields her from the charges she now faces.
The public has learned much about Maxwell's relationship with Epstein through depositions and documentation for civil litigation brought by Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein and Maxwell, as well as high-profile figures like Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz, of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager (the Duke of York and Dershowitz have denied the allegations against them).
Accusers say Maxwell and Epstein sexually abused them, sexually trafficked them to other wealthy people, and kept them happy by paying for their expenses and taking them on lavish shopping trips.
Ian Maxwell's description of his sister's relationship with Epstein aligns with what her attorneys have argued in court. In her first bail application, filed in July 2020, they claimed Ghislaine Maxwell "had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade" and that prosecutors were trying to "substitute" her for Epstein following his suicide.
Documents unsealed over the course of Giuffre's litigation indicate that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell exchanged emails in 2015, however.
"You have done nothing wrong and I would urge you to start acting like it," Epstein wrote to Maxwell from the email account jeevacation@gmail.com. "Go outside head high not as an escaping convict."