Jeffrey Epstein ex-girlfriend alleges abuse by guard in federal jail

Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend claimed via her lawyer Tuesday {that a} guard bodily abused her at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, after which she was punished for complaining about it.
Attorney Bobbi Sternheim wrote in a letter to a Manhattan federal decide that the abuse occurred lately on the Metropolitan Detention Center as Ghislaine Maxwell was present process a pat down search in her isolation cell.
The lawyer stated the British socialite requested {that a} digital camera be used to seize what was occurring, however a guard “replied ‘no.’”
“When Ms Maxwell recoiled in pain and when she said she would report the mistreatment, she was threatened with disciplinary action,” Sternheim stated.
Days later, Maxwell was retaliated in opposition to for reporting the abuse when a guard ordered her right into a bathe to scrub, sanitize, and scrub the partitions with a brush, the lawyer stated. She added that Maxwell was denied a request that the encounter with the guard within the tight house be recorded.
A spokesperson for prosecutors declined remark. A message in search of remark was despatched to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Maxwell, 59, is awaiting a July trial on expenses that she recruited three teenage ladies for Epstein to sexually abuse within the Nineties and dedicated perjury throughout 2016 depositions in a civil case. She has pleaded not responsible.

She has remained incarcerated with out bail since July, when she was arrested nearly precisely a yr after Epstein was arrested to face intercourse trafficking expenses. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail a month after his arrest.
In late December, a decide rejected a $28.5 million bail proposal for Maxwell, saying she was a danger to flee and was not forthcoming with authorities about her funds after her arrest.
As a part of the bail proposal, legal professionals stated Maxwell had about $22.5 million in property along with her husband and had put aside over $7 million for her protection.
In Tuesday’s letter, Sternheim repeated assertions made earlier than that Maxwell is being subjected to onerous circumstances that embrace repeated searches and being woke up each quarter-hour by a lightweight flashed into her cell when she sleeps. The lawyer stated the jail is reacting to Epstein’s suicide.
Sternheim stated Maxwell has been bodily searched roughly 1,400 occasions within the final seven months and no contraband has ever been discovered regardless of a whole bunch of bodily searches of the cell the place she lives alone in addition to her locker, authorized papers, and private results.
She stated her shopper is below 24-hour surveillance by two-to-six guards and roughly 18 cameras, not together with a hand-held digital camera skilled on her when she is moved outdoors the cell.
Meanwhile, harsh therapy that features meals so poorly ready that it typically can’t be eaten has taken a toll, the lawyer stated.
“She is withering to a shell of her former self — losing weight, losing hair, and losing her ability to concentrate,” Sternheim wrote. “In addition to the many difficulties impacting her review of electronic discovery materials, the over-management and stress are impacting her stamina and effectiveness in preparing her defense and conferring with counsel.”