NEW YORK - Starting Monday, prosecutors in Lower Manhattan will argue that British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 59, was secretly abetting dead financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes with girls as young as 14.The indictment against Maxwell is based on accusations from four women who say she recruited them to give Epstein massages that progressed into sexual abuse.
Maxwell sometimes participated in the sexual encounters and was involved in paying at least one accuser, prosecutors allege.A key question for jurors: Was Maxwell an unwitting pawn of Epstein’s manipulations or a knowing opportunist?Maxwell spent the first half of her life with her father, a rags-to-riches billionaire who looted his companies' pension funds and died mysteriously..