Ghislaine Maxwell: Key points from Epstein case as disgraced socialite gives new prison interview

Last year Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for helping the late paedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein abuse young girls

Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell will appear on TV screens tonight after giving an interview to Jeremy Kyle from behind bars.

Last year Maxwell was found guilty of helping the late paedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein - who killed himself while awaiting trial - abuse young girls.

Maxwell, daughter of newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell, was convicted of recruiting and trafficking four teenage girls for Epstein, who was her boyfriend at the time and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The 61-year-old has always denied any wrongdoing and has given an interview to TalkTV, due to air later on Monday, in which she will give her account of the case.

In comments published by TalkTV ahead of the broadcast at 7pm, Maxwell repeated a claim - also made by Prince Andrew himself - that a photo of him with his arm around Virginia Giuffre is fake.

Ms Guiffre, previously known as Virginia Roberts, accused the Duke of York of sexually assaulting her when she was trafficked to the UK by Epstein aged 17. He has always denied the claims. Andrew, who claimed that he had never met Ms Guiffre, would later pay millions to Ms Giuffre in a civil sexual assault case.

“It’s a fake. I don’t believe it’s real for a second, in fact I’m sure it’s not,” she said from her prison in Florida. “Well, there’s never been an original and further there’s no photograph, and I’ve only ever seen a photocopy of it.”

The photo in question is said to have been taken at Maxwell’s home in Mayfair central London.

Ahead of the interview airing, The Independent takes a look back at some of the key dates from the scandal.

Maxwell pictured during the Talk TV interview (PA)

March 2005

Police in Palm Beach, Florida, begin investigating Epstein after the family of a 14-year-old girl reports she was molested at his mansion. Multiple underage girls, many of them high school students, would later tell police that Epstein hired them to give sexual massages.

May 2006

Palm Beach police officials sign paperwork to charge Epstein with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor, but the county’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Barry Krischer, takes the unusual step of sending the case to a grand jury.

July 2006

Epstein is arrested after a grand jury indicts him on a single count of soliciting prostitution. The relatively minor charge draws almost immediate attention from critics, including Palm Beach police leaders, who assail Krischer publicly and accuse him of giving Epstein special treatment. The FBI begins an investigation.

2007

Federal prosecutors prepare an indictment against Epstein. But for a year, the money manager’s lawyers engage in talks with the US attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, about a plea bargain that would allow Epstein to avoid federal prosecution. Epstein’s lawyers said they considered the accusers to be unreliable witnesses.

June 2008

Epstein pleads guilty to state charges: one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He is sentenced to 18 months in jail. Under a secret arrangement, the US attorney’s office agrees not to prosecute Epstein for federal crimes. Epstein serves most of his sentence in a work-release program that allows him to leave jail during the day to go to his office, then return at night.

July 2009

Epstein is released from jail. For the next decade, multiple women who say they are Epstein’s victims wage a legal fight to get his federal non-prosecution agreement voided, and hold him and others liable for the abuse. One of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, says in her lawsuits that, starting when she was 17, Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, set up sexual encounters with royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and other rich and powerful men, including Britain’s Prince Andrew. All of those men deny the allegations.

November 2018

The Miami Herald revisits the handling of Epstein’s case in a series of stories focusing partly on the role of Acosta — who by this point is president Donald Trump’s labor secretary — in arranging his unusual plea deal. The coverage renews public interest in the case.

July 6, 2019

Epstein is arrested on federal sex trafficking charges after federal prosecutors in New York conclude that they weren’t bound by the terms of the earlier non-prosecution deal. Days later, Acosta resigns as labor secretary amid public outrage over his role in the initial investigation.

Aug 10, 2019

Guards find Epstein dead in his cell at a federal jail in New York City. Investigators conclude he killed himself.

July 2, 2020

Federal prosecutors in New York charge Maxwell with sex crimes, saying she helped recruit the underage girls that Epstein sexually abused and sometimes participated in the abuse herself.

Dec 30, 2021

After a month-long trial, a jury convicts Maxwell of multiple charges, including sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity.

June 28, 2022

Maxwell is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Maxwell and Andrew have cast doubt on the authenticity of a photo showing them with Giuffre (US Department of Justice/PA)

October 2022

Maxwell gives her first interview from inside the prison. She said she feels “so bad” for her “dear friend” Prince Andrew.

“I accept that this friendship could not survive my conviction,” she said. “He is paying such a price for the association. I consider him a dear friend. I care about him.”

Maxwell also addressed the photograph of Andrew with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Ms Giuffre, and claimed she now believes that it is not “a true image”.

The photograph was central to Ms Giuffre’s civil lawsuit in New York against Andrew. “I don’t recognise that picture and I don’t believe it is a real picture,” Maxwell said.

She also praises former president Donald Trump for backing her in the case.

November 2022

The US Virgin Islands announces that it has reached a settlement of more than $105 million in the sex trafficking case against Epstein.

The settlement ends a nearly three-year legal saga for officials in the US territory, which sought to hold Epstein accountable after he was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls and of causing environmental damage on the two tiny islands he owned in the US Virgin Islands. The islands will be sold as part of the agreement.

“This settlement restores the faith of the people of the Virgin Islands that its laws will be enforced, without fear or favour, against those who break them,” Attorney general Denise George said at the time.

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein (Channel 4)

January 2023

Reports emerge claiming Maxwell is teaching a four-week etiquette class at her Tallahassee, Florida prison.

“Taught by Mrs Maxwell this course teaches the three principles of etiquette — focusing on respect, consideration and honesty,” a course description tacked to the wall at the Federal Correctional Institution read, according to the Daily Mail.

January 2023

Andrew is said to be weighing up a legal bid to overturn the multimillion-pound settlement reached with Ms Giuffre.

The duke’s team was considering legal options, The Sun reported, after Ms Giuffre’s sex abuse case against high-profile US lawyer Alan Dershowitz was toppled.

21 January 2023

UK broadcaster Jeremy Kyle announces he has interviewed Maxwell for a special programme to be broadcast on TalkTV.

In their discussion on the show, titled Ghislaine Behind Bars, Mr Kyle says the pair will cover topics that include Epstein and their mutual friend, Andrew.

22 January

The Jeremy Kyle Live Twitter account posts a clip of the interview in which Maxwell repeats the claim she and Andrew have made previously - that the aforementioned photo said to have been taken in her Mayfair home was fake.