Ghislaine Maxwell offers to give up UK, French citizenship to get out of jail
Accused sex-trafficking British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is so desperate to get out of her Brooklyn jail cell that she’s offering to renounce her UK and French citizenships in exchange for her freedom, new court papers show.
In her latest bid for bail, the pal of late pedophile
financier Jeffery Epstein and naturalized US citizen offers to give up the two
other citizenships in an effort to finally prove to a federal judge that she
won’t be a flight risk if freed before trial.
“Ms. Maxwell will renounce her French and British
citizenship to eliminate any opportunity for her to seek refuge in those
countries, if the Court so requires,” her lawyers wrote in documents filed in
Brooklyn federal court Tuesday.
“Citizenship is a precious and priceless asset,” the filing
said.
“Ms. Maxwell’s decision to give up citizenship from the
country of her birth and the country of her upbringing demonstrates her
earnestness to abide by the conditions of her release and underscores that she
has no intention to flee and reflects her deep need to communicate freely with
counsel to prepare for her defense.”
The legal team for the defendant — a longtime buddy of
Britain’s Prince Andrew and the daughter of late disgraced British media mogul
Robert Maxwell — noted that some other high-profile defendants charged with
serious sex crimes have been released on bail.
Her lawyers specifically cited the case of the French
infamous former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique
Strauss-Kahn.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested in 2011 on a flight to Paris from
JFK Airport amid allegations he raped a Manhattan hotel maid, the legal papers
noted. He was then freed on $1 million cash bail and put on house arrest. The
raps against Strauss-Kahn were eventually tossed.
Maxwell’s legal team has been trying to free her from the
Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for months.
She has been locked up since her arrest in July, when she
was tracked down to a New Hampshire property she had been hiding out in.
The fallen socialite has griped about everything from the
food to computers to harassment behind bars.
Prosecutors have argued she presents a high flight risk,
given her past alleged attempts to evade them and her considerable financial
means.
In Tueday’s filing, her lawyers also offered to have her and
her husband’s assets — “excluding funds earmarked for living expenses, for
legal fees and other expenses necessary to defend her against the criminal
charges in this case and related civil lawsuits and for taxes” — put in an
account monitored by a former US attorney to tshow she would stick around.
“Ms. Maxwell has already been denied a fair chance in the
court of public opinion,” the papers claimed.
She has been maligned by the media, which has perpetuated a
false narrative about her that has poisoned any open-mindedness and
impartiality of a potential jury.
“She has been relentlessly attacked with vicious slurs,
persistent lies, and blatant inaccuracies by spokespeople who have neither met
nor spoken to her,’’ according to the filing.
“She has been depicted as a cartoon-character villain in an
attempt to turn her into a substitute replacement for Jeffrey Epstein.
“Yet, Ms. Maxwell is determined – and welcomes the
opportunity – to face her accusers at trial and clear her name. The additional
proposed bail conditions should quell any concerns that she would try to flee.”
Maxwell, 59, would also surrender her passports as part of
the deal.
She is accused of acting as Epstein’s madam, allegedly
procuring underage and young women for him to sexually abuse. She has pleaded
not guilty.
Epstein was found hanged behind bars in the Manhattan
Correctional Center in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex raps.
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