Bill Clinton had secret dinner with Ghislaine Maxwell

New reports have claimed former US President Bill Clinton met with accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell for an “intimate” dinner in 2014.

The alleged meeting is said to have happened well after Ms Maxwell’s boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein had pleaded guilty for soliciting minors for sex in 2008.

Ms Maxwell, 58, is now in a Brooklyn jail after being charged earlier this year over the alleged abuse and grooming of minors as part of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.

Mr Clinton and Ms Maxwell met with a small group of friends at a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles after a celebrity Gala, according to a report from the Daily Beast.

“This is an intimate dinner with Clinton in LA,” a source said. “Think of all the people (Clinton) knows in LA – and Ghislaine gets to attend.”

A spokesman for Mr Clinton declined to comment to the Daily Beast other than to point to a statement issued by the former president’s team from 2019, that said, “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”

Reports of Epstein’s abuse of minors and young women, and Ms Maxwell’s involvement, were being investigated by authorities for almost 10 years before the alleged dinner.

Authorities began investigating Epstein in 2005 when a teenage girl, 14, made a report about being given money for a massage.

Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for sex in 2008, and was sentenced to 13 months behind bars for the crime – but was given day release to go to work.

In 2011, Virginia Giuffre accused Epstein, along with Ms Maxwell, of sexually exploiting her in an incident that involved Prince Andrew. Ms Giuffre alleged she was trafficked to the Prince for sex.

Prince Andrew and Ms Maxwell have denied any wrongdoing.

Ms Maxwell broke down in tears in July this year when a judge denied her bail to live in a “luxury” hotel in Manhattan, instead forcing her to remain behind bars for a year until her 2021 trial.

Ms Maxwell had her hair in a bun and wore a brown T-shirt when she was told she’d be “ordered to be detained pending trial”.

Ms Maxwell pleaded not guilty via video link to the charges related to grooming victims for Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.

She was denied a $US5 million bond, and the judge blocked out three weeks for the trial in July 2021.