Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite facing criminal charges she supplied girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, declared her innocence late Monday and proposed a $22 million bail package that would include armed guards to ensure she does not flee.
The bail arguments, first filed under seal last Tuesday, were publicly released late on Monday in Manhattan federal court with redactions approved by Judge Alison J Nathan.
In the filing, Maxwell also disclosed she has been married since 2016, and with her husband would post a $22.5 million bond, mirroring their combined assets, to support her bail application.
Most of the remaining bail would be guaranteed by friends and family.
Maxwell, 58, is scheduled to face trial in July on charges she recruited three teenage girls for Epstein to abuse in the mid-1990s.
Her first attempt at securing bail shortly after her July arrest was rejected, as Breitbart News reported.
“Ms Maxwell vehemently maintains her innocence and is committed to defending herself,” the lawyers wrote. “She wants nothing more than to remain in this country to fight the allegations against her, which are based on the uncorroborated testimony of a handful of witnesses about events that took place over 25 years ago.”
To support the bail request, the lawyers included a letter from Maxwell’s spouse.
They said the letter tells how Maxwell was forced to leave her family and drop out of public view, not because she was eluding law enforcement, but because of “the intense media frenzy and threats following the arrest and death of Jeffrey Epstein.”
A spokesperson for prosecutors declined to comment.
Maxwell, who is currently held in a Brooklyn detention center, is said to believe Epstein was murdered in his prison cell and fears she will be next, a family friend of the alleged madam told The Sun last July.
“Everyone’s view, including Ghislaine’s, is Epstein was murdered. She received death threats before she was arrested,” the former friend also told the British tabloid paper.
Maxwell is the daughter of the late British media magnate Robert Maxwell and was frequently seen at Epstein’s side in a high-profile social life among leading figures from the worlds of politics and the arts.