Conditions in jail are so tough for Ghislaine Maxwell the accused pedophile procurer is losing her hair and is wasting away to skin and bone, her lawyers complained in a new court filing.
“While her weight may currently be fairly consistent, she had lost over 15 pounds, and she is sustaining hair loss,” wrote attorney Bobbi Sternheim in the letter to US District Judge Alison Nathan, who is overseeing Maxwell’s sex-trafficking case.
The filing was in response to a letter the federal Bureau of Prisons sent the judge, insisting that Maxwell is well cared for and has maintained a healthy 134-pound weight while at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Maxwell’s lawyers have frequently complained about the “onerous” terms of her confinement — including frequent strip searches, being awoken every 15 minutes by a flashlight at night to ensure she’s still alive and countless meals consisting of no more than bread and butter.
Sternheim wrote that while her meal plan may be in compliance with BOP policy now, it was not for the first six weeks of her incarceration. She has been kept in isolation and been denied access to education and leisure programs, movies, religious services and other opportunities, the letter states.
“It is obvious that Ms. Maxwell is bearing the brunt of BOP incompetence,” Sternheim wrote. She said the MDC has “imposed extraordinarily onerous conditions of constraint on Ms. Maxwell to avoid the catastrophic consequences of negligence occurring at the MCC that resulted in the death of Jeffrey Epstein.”
Maxwell’s alleged co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself at the BOP’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan last year while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Sternheim demanded that the warden be called before the court to debrief the judge directly on the conditions.
The back-and-forth over Maxwell’s confinement comes as her attorneys have renewed her bid for bail.
After her arrest in July on charges she recruited girls and women to be sexually abused by her and Epstein, Nathan denied her bid for release on $5 million bond.
In a Nov. 25 letter to the judge unsealed Monday, Maxwell’s lawyer Mark Cohen asked that the bail application be filed under seal to protect her friends and family who plan to co-sign the bond.
“They are legitimately afraid that if their identities become public, they will be subjected to the same relentless media scrutiny and threats that Ms. Maxwell has experienced,” Cohen wrote.
The filing included examples of several death threats against Maxwell posted to social media. The judge has agreed to redact the names of friends and family in court papers — but not to seal the entire filing.
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