Ghislaine Maxwell's defense keeps 'spotlight' on Epstein, other powerful men
“By portraying him as charismatic, well-connected, almost larger than life, her team may well be hoping to make Maxwell disappear into the background," one legal expert said.
The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is the one accused of sex trafficking, but during the first five days of testimony in a New York City courtroom her lawyers have put her deceased boss, Jeffrey Epstein, and his famous friends on trial, legal experts say.
That strategy quickly became evident on the first day of the long-awaited trial when attorney Bobbi Sternheim, in her opening statement, dipped into the book of Genesis to defend Maxwell.
“Ever since Eve was tempting Adam with the apple, women have been blamed for the bad behavior of men,” Sternheim said. “She is not Jeffrey Epstein, she is not like Jeffrey Epstein.”
In fact, Maxwell’s defense team is subtly trying to portray her as Epstein’s first victim, the experts said.
Defense lawyer Bobbi Sternheim points toward Ghislaine Maxwell during a pretrial hearing Nov. 23. Jane Rosenberg / Reuters
“In an effort to make Maxwell ‘Eve’ to Epstein’s ‘Adam,’ as her lawyer suggested in the opening statement, we can expect the defense to do whatever it can to keep the spotlight on his manipulative, grooming behavior,” said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor of law at Northwestern University, who served five years as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
The defense is also keeping the spotlight on the powerful men who were in Epstein’s orbit, such as former President Donald Trump and Britain’s Prince Andrew, the experts said.
“The defense has signaled its intention to make Epstein central to this trial,” Tuerkheimer said. “By portraying him as charismatic, well-connected, almost larger than life, her team may well be hoping to make Maxwell disappear into the background. Epstein’s star-studded life of fame and riches can grab the jury’s attention and focus, increasing the odds that Maxwell appears as a merely peripheral figure in the story.”
Robert Sanders, a retired captain in the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps and the head of the University of New Haven’s national security department, said the strategy Maxwell’s lawyers are following can be likened to a #MeToo defense.
“The #MeToo movement is not over,” he said. “The defense is trying to make the point that Epstein and all these men were involved, but they are unavailable to be prosecuted, but we’ve got her.”
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, hanged himself two years ago in a Manhattan jail while awaiting a sex trafficking trial.
On Day Three of Maxwell's trial, another member of her legal team, Laura Menninger, brought up Trump, an Epstein neighbor who had partied at the financier’s Palm Beach, Florida, mansion.
Menninger asked Jane — a pseudonym for the first of four women at this trial who have accused the 59-year-old Maxwell of “grooming” them when they were underage to have sex with Epstein and other powerful men — to confirm that she was driven by Epstein to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach to meet the future president when she was just 14.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005, in New York City. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images file
During her cross-examination of Jane, an actor by profession, Menninger did not press her for details about her meeting with Trump or allege he abused her in any way.