(Bloomberg) — The jury in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial has reached a verdict.
The verdict will be read shortly in Manhattan federal court, where the British socialite has been on trial on charges that she lured and groomed underage girls for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein, her former boyfriend and employer.
Four women took the stand against Maxwell, saying they were abused as teenagers. Prosecutors also put forth several former Epstein employees as witnesses to describe his relationship with Maxwell. A onetime private pilot for Epstein said he saw Maxwell as his boss’s “No. 2.”
Maxwell’s lawyers claim the government is trying to scapegoat her for the crimes of Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting his own sex-trafficking trial. Her defense team has also relentlessly attacked the reliability of her accusers’ testimony.
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