James Comey's daughter is a lead prosecutor in Ghislaine Maxwell's child sex trafficking case. Here's what we know about her.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have brought plenty of familiar faces along with them into the spotlight, including Prince Andrew and former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.
But one newcomer is 32-year-old Maurene Comey.
The daughter of former FBI director James Comey, Maurene Comey is one of the three lead prosecutors on the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, whose child sex-trafficking trial is scheduled to begin Monday.
Despite her father's history of dominating the news cycle, Maurene Comey has largely stayed out of the spotlight, instead maintaining a low-profile presence.
But she's taken on major cases before Maxwell's trial, including the prosecution of Natalie Edwards, a self-proclaimed Treasury Department whistleblower; and Robert Hadden, a gynecologist accused of sexually abusing dozens of young women.
She was also one of the lead prosecutors in the case against Jeffrey Epstein before he killed himself in August 2019 while awaiting trial.
Here's what we know about the first daughter of law and order.
Maurene Comey has worked on multiple Epstein and Maxwell-related cases
Comey is currently an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York — one of the most prestigious federal prosecutors' offices nationwide.
The district covers Manhattan and the surrounding area, making it the center of prosecutions for financial crimes and other high-profile cases.
Maurene Comey joined the office in 2015, and is listed as one of three lead prosecutors handling the case against Maxwell, along with Assistant US Attorneys Alex Rossmiller and Alison Gainfort Moe.
The three of them also handled the case against Epstein, who was indicted in July 2019 for numerous sex crimes. For the case against Maxwell, they're joined by Assistant US Attorneys Andrew Rohrbach and Lara Elizabeth Pomerantz.
The prosecutors have accused Maxwell of trafficking teenage girls for sex and sexually abusing them herself along with Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denied all misconduct.
James Comey was the head of the SDNY between 2002 and 2003 before former President George W. Bush named him deputy attorney general. He worked in the private sector from 2005 until former President Barack Obama named him FBI director in 2013.
Prior to joining the SDNY office herself in 2015, Maurene Comey worked for a year as a clerk for Loretta Preska, who at the time was the chief judge at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Preska oversees a long-running defamation case that Virginia Giuffre filed against Maxwell. Giuffre has accused both Maxwell and Epstein of sexual misconduct, and the civil lawsuit has led to numerous unsealed documents related to Epstein's and Maxwell's conduct.
Two of the current criminal charges against Maxwell allege she perjured herself by lying in a deposition taken for Giuffre's case, but those charges are set to be tried in a separate trial.
Comey has also worked on another Epstein-related case: Nicholas Tartaglione. The former police officer was arrested in 2016, accused of killing four men as part of a drug crime conspiracy. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and he's been jailed for the past five years — often getting into arguments with correctional officials, court records show — as his case has been delayed.
Tartaglione was briefly roommates with Epstein at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019, and was living with him when Epstein made his first suicide attempt in jail, on July 23. Tartaglione claimed to have helped Epstein after finding him unconscious. The jail was shut down earlier this year after numerous scandals.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/james-comeys-daughter-lead-prosecutor-222807597.html