Content warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual assault.
On the second day of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex-trafficking trial in New York, harrowing details from a female witness have emerged.
The female witness, employing the pseudonym ‘Jane’, told the twelve New York City jurors that when she was 14, she had sexual interactions with the financier Jeffrey Epstein, and that Maxwell was frequently in the room.
According to ‘Jane’s testimony, Maxwell was “very casual,” as she instructed the young teenager on how to give Epstein sexual massages, all the while acting as though what was happening “was no big deal,” she said.
The witness encountered Epstein for the first time in 1994 while she was at music camp in Michigan.
He approached the teenager and told her he was a donor. Shortly after the camp, she began to receive invitations to visit Epstein’s home.
Epstein and Maxwell took her to shop for clothes, including underwear from Victoria’s Secret.
The abuse began one day when Epstein took the teenager by her hand and told her to follow him. He lead her to a pool house in his home, pulled his pants down and proceeded to masturbate.
“I was frozen in fear,” the witness said. “I’d never see a penis before. … I was terrified and felt gross and felt ashamed.”
Another incident took place where Epstein and Maxwell took her to a massage room and assaulted her.
“There were hands everywhere and Jeffrey proceeded to masturbate again,” she told the court. She also described other encounters involving sex toys and “orgies” with other young women.
‘Jane’s testimony came after the trial’s first witness, Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr, took the stand.
Visoski was the pilot and captain of Epstein’s private planes between 1991 and 2019. He told the jury on Monday that he never saw evidence of sexual activity on the planes he flew, adding that he stayed in the cockpit for most of the flights, but would sometimes go out to the bathroom or to get coffee.
“The main thing that came out of his evidence in chief was a sense of just how rich and opulent Epstein was,” journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley reported.
“As someone who stayed with Epstein in all of his homes, Visoski was able to give detailed descriptions of how “tremendous” in size they all were.”
“Visoski said in his evidence in chief that he thought Jane was a “mature woman”, and obviously the defence grabbed onto that, hoping to prove that Ghislaine did not know the girls were underage.”
Osborne-Crowley tweeted she does not believe that to be true, adding “… it just depends whether it’s reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury as to how much Ghislaine knew.”
“The defence also made the point strongly in cross that Visoski didn’t know for sure how many times the girls flew, that all the girls seemed to him to be over 20 (which again we know is not true but the question is about Maxwell’s knowledge) and that he saw nothing sexual on the plane.”
“I expect the govt will re-examine Visoski with vigour to reinforce the times that he remembers seeing girls like Jane on flights with Epstein and times he saw younger girls with their parents.”
Osborne-Crowley also reported that the court heard about the high-profile people who flew on the plane.
“The defence asked Visoski about seeing Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Donald Trump and Visoski confirmed them all. Strange that this came from defence.”
Maxwell attorney’s Christian Everdell asked him if he ever saw sexual activity when he went for coffee or found sex toys when he cleaned up.
“Never,” the pilot responded.
He also told the court he never saw any children on his planes who were not accompanied by their parents.
Epstein’s plane was nicknamed “The Lolita Express” by the media after allegations surfaced he was using it to fly teenage girls to his multiple private residencies, including Little St James in US Virgin Islands, his New Mexico ranch and his New York City townhouse.
Maxwell, 59, who travelled with Epstein for decades, was arrested in July 2020.
She has pleaded not guilty to six counts arising from allegedly procuring teen girls for Epstein.
In her opening statement on Monday, US Attorney Lara Pomerantz told jurors Epstein and Maxwell were “partners in crime.”
Pomerantz claimed that Maxwell recruited and groomed several girls for Epstein to sexually abuse from 1994 to at least 2004.
One of Maxwell’s lawyers said on Monday that her client was being made a scapegoat for Epstein — who died by suicide in his jail cell his Manhattan in August 2019 while waiting for his sex trafficking trial.
‘Jane’ is the first of four alleged victims who will testify against Maxwell in the trail.
Overnight, Lisa Bloom, the attorney representing several Epstein victims said the prosecution “…very clearly and concisely laid out their case, that there are four victims, that Ghislaine Maxwell knew everything Epstein was doing, that she trafficked these women, that she knew all of it.”
Image: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters