Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s fellow inmates at a minimum-security facility in Texas resent her for disrupting their daily routine and receiving what they say is special treatment.
Federal authorities transferred the British former socialite, who is serving a 20-year sentence for helping late financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls, from a higher-security Florida facility to Federal Prison Camp, Bryan earlier this summer.
Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, prisoners at the Texas facility say her arrival has upended a usually relaxed pace of life at the camp, where inmates benefit from relative luxuries like dormitory-style housing, greater freedom of movement throughout the grounds, paid work assignments, and recreational and educational programs.
They add her presence has seen a greater incidence of lockdowns, and complain she’s been afforded special treatment like guards bringing food to her room and a greater focus on her safety than that of other inmates.
During one of those lockdowns in mid-August, Maxwell is understood to have attended a meeting in the prison chapel with several outside visitors. While the WSJ says it isn’t clear who exactly Maxwell met with, an inmate told the newspaper they recalled seeing her smiling when she returned to her unit later that day, and that when asked, the sex trafficker said it had gone well.
A week later, the DOJ dropped a transcript of Maxwell’s July chat with Deputy AG Todd Blanche—Trump’s former personal lawyer—where she insisted she’d never seen the president do anything improper or illegal
Trump has faced increasing scrutiny over the past few months of his relationship with Maxwell’s co-conspirator Epstein, whom he once described as a “terrific guy” who likes women “on the younger side.”
The president has long courted conspiracy theories, popular among his supporters, about the financier’s crimes and 2019 death in police custody. That courtship was upended in July when the Justice Department determined that contrary to online rumors, Epstein died by suicide and kept no “client list” of uber wealthy co-conspirators.
Critics have slammed Maxwell’s August transfer as a perceived quid pro quo for her comments exonerating the president in her interview with Blanche. Trump, meanwhile. has repeatedly declined to rule out the possibility of a presidential pardon for the convicted sex trafficker, which now stands as her only hope of early release after the Supreme Court announced Monday it would not be hearing her appeal.
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