BY ANDREW GOUDSWARD and LUC COHEN for AAP
Ghislaine Maxwell has been transferred from a Florida prison to a lower-security facility in Texas to continue serving her 20-year sentence for helping the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.
The US Bureau of Prisons made the announcement on Friday (US time).
Maxwell’s move from FCI Tallahassee, a low-security prison, to the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, comes a week after she met with Deputy US Attorney-General Todd Blanche, who said he wanted to speak with her about anyone else who may have been involved in Epstein’s crimes.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, confirmed she was moved but said he had no other comment. Spokespersons for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The BOP classifies prison camps such as Bryan as minimum security institutions, the lowest of five security levels in the federal system. Such facilities have limited or no perimeter fencing. Low-security facilities such as FCI Tallahassee have double-fenced perimeters and higher staff-to-inmate ratios than camps, according to the bureau.
Asked why Maxwell was transferred, BOP spokesman Donald Murphy said he could not comment on the specifics of any incarcerated individual’s prison assignment, but that the BOP determines where inmates are sent based on factors including “the level of security and supervision the inmate requires”.
Blanche’s meeting with Maxwell came as President Donald Trump faces pressure from both his base of conservative supporters and congressional Democrats to release more information from the Department of Justice’s investigations of Maxwell and Epstein.
The Department is seeking court approval to of law enforcement officers’ testimony before the grand juries that indicted Maxwell and Epstein. Such transcripts are usually kept secret. Two federal judges in Manhattan are weighing the government’s requests.
Lawyers for Maxwell, Epstein, and their alleged victims are due to share their positions on the potential unsealing with the judges in filings on Tuesday.
Epstein took his own life in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty.
Neither Markus nor Blanche has provided detailed accounts of what they discussed. Markus has said Maxwell would welcome relief from Trump, who has said he had not thought about whether to pardon her.
Maxwell was found guilty at a 2021 trial of recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. She had pleaded not guilty and is asking the Supreme Court to overturn her conviction.
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- National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
