Ghislaine Maxwell believes Epstein was murdered in prison, brother says

Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother believes that she is being scapegoated because Epstein is no longer alive

Ghislaine Maxwell likely believes that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered, her brother Ian Maxwell said during an interview on Saturday.

In the 24-minute appearance on The Spectator’s Americano podcast, Mr Maxwell rallied behind his sister as he compared theories around the death of the convicted sex offender to the case of his own father, the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991.

"I don’t buy a lot of the conspiracy theories at all. It so happens that one of the conspiracy theories is about my father, that he was murdered.

"Of all of my siblings Ghislaine is the only one who happens to believe that he [Robert Maxwell] was murdered.

"And I would venture to believe that she may also think that Epstein was murdered,” he said.

Epstein, convicted in 2008 by a Florida state court of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute, was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on further charges. While the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, his death had sparked numerous conspiracy theories including that he was murdered.

Meanwhile, the body of billionaire press baron Robert Maxwell was discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean in 1991 after he fell overboard from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. While an inquest recorded the cause of death to be heart attack and accidental drowning, speculation about the incident remains rife, including whether it was a suicide or murder.

In the podcast, Mr Maxwell also recounted his only meeting with Epstein in 1996 during a lunch with his sister.

"I didn’t warm to him,” said Mr Maxwell. “He was a bit of a cagey character, clearly intelligent, had a certain charisma. But he was somebody who took things from you rather than gave things back. Not a very clubbable man, not a man you want to go and have a drink with."

Mr Maxwell also defended his sister Ghislaine over the New York trial she is currently facing. Ms Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of sex trafficking and other charges for her alleged role in recruiting and grooming four teenagers for Epstein to abuse between 1994 and 2004, with the prosecution resting its case on Friday after two weeks. 

Mr Maxwell believes that his sister is being scapegoated because Epstein is no longer alive.

“I think that the key thing that I have always thought about is that she should never have been put on trial. The case against her is really a case against Jeffrey Epstein that has been reverse-engineered post his death against my sister.

“And it’s been driven from the start by a combination of enormous embarrassment on the part of the US legal authorities on one hand and by the greed of the lawyers of the accusers on the other hand.

“And that has whipped up tremendous fury against my sister that has totally trashed her presumption of innocence and has led to her being jailed for over 525 days in isolation.”

Ms Maxwell’s trial will resume on Monday with the opening of the defence’s case.