Ghislaine Maxwell: Newly released documents show she emailed Jeffrey Epstein in 2015, despite saying they haven’t had contact in decade

Maxwell is charged with aiding Jeffrey Epstein abuse of young girls

Court documents released on Thursday appear to undermine claims by British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell that she cut ties with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a decade ago.

Earlier this month, lawyers for Ms Maxwell, who faces charges of aiding Epstein’s sexual abuse of young girls, said in court papers that the 58-year-old had not been in contact with her former associate for 10 years.

But a cache of files unsealed by US District Judge Loretta Preska late on Thursday evening reveals the pair had been in contacted as late as 2015, with Epstein telling Maxwell in one email: “You have done nothing wrong.

“I woudl [sic] urge you to start acting like it. Go outside, head high, not as an escaping esacping [sic] convict. Go to parties. Deal with it...” Esptein wrote in an email in January 2015.

Messages in the email exchange appear to be written for Ms Maxwell to use as statements in distancing herself from Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in July last year while awaiting trial for a number of sex offences.

“Since JE was charged in 2007 for solicitation of a prostitute I have been the target of outright lies, innuendo, slander, defamation and salacious gossip and harassment,” Epstein wrote in another email.

The statement goes on to claim that media reports about Maxwell are inaccurate. They are “false allegations of impropriety and offensive behavior that I abhor and have never been a party to,” Epstein wrote.

Ms Maxwell then writes to Epstein on 24 January 2015 asking him to make public a relationship he allegedly had with a woman named “Shelley”. “I think she was [your girlfriend] from end 99 to 2002,” Ms Maxwell wrote.

The court documents, which relate to a 2015 civil defamation case brought by Virginia Giuffre, were released after an intense legal battle. Ms Maxwell’s team had previously said in the civil suit that “this series of pleadings concerns [attempts] to compel Ms Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life”.

Defence attorneys for Ms Maxwell had argued that the documents are “extremely personal, confidential and subject to considerable abuse by the media”.

But judge Preska on 23 July ordered that the documents be unsealed, stating “the court finds that the countervailing interests identified fail to rebut the presumption of public access.”

Lawyers for Ms Maxwell are also fighting against making details of their client’s deposition public, arguing that they would reveal intimate details of her sex life.

Other revelations to come from the court documents are that Maxwell and Epstein allegedly used the latter’s private Caribbean island to host “constant” orgies with young women.

Ms Giuffre, who has accused both Epstein and Ms Maxwell of abusing her, claimed that Ms Maxwell had “continuous” sex with other women in front of her, some of whom she said had been flown to the island from Europe.

Ms Giuffre claims some of the women were as young as 15.

“There’s just a blur of so many girls,” Ms Giuffre told Ms Maxwell’s attorneys when asked if she could name girls she saw the socialite has sex with.

“There were blondes, there were brunettes, there were redheads. They were all beautiful girls. I would say the ages ranged between 15 and 21.”

When asked where she saw Maxwell have sex with other women, Giuffre said “100 per cent” the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned his private Little St. James Island.

Ms Guiffre has also claimed that she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. He denies the allegations. She also claimed to have seen former president Bill Clinton on the island.