The closely-watched trial of Ghislaine Maxwell continued in New York on Thursday, with attorneys for the accused sex trafficker and former girlfriend to the late Jeffrey Epstein calling their own witnesses to rebuff the accusations made by the prosecution last week.
Maxwell, a British socialite who famously dated the notorious pedophile, has long been accused of recruiting underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse and has even been accused of abusing some of the purported victims herself.
The first witness in her defense was Cimberly Espinosa, a former assistant to Maxwell who worked in Epstein’s New York office.
Espinosa spoke favorably of Maxwell, who the defense is trying to paint as a victim, rather than an accomplice, to Epstein.
“I highly respected Ghislaine,” Espinosa gushed, according to The Guardian. “I looked up to her very much, and I actually learned a lot from her.”
She also described Epstein, who had prior convictions for soliciting minors for sex when he died awaiting trial on federal child sex trafficking charges in 2019, as “a giver” and “kind.”
The terms in which she considered Epstein to be altruistic appears to be in entirely financial.
“He was generous, and I always knew him to be donating to charities and just being a kind person,” Espinosa said, adding that Epstein also “paid for a personal trainer” for her and even booked her massages — a primary means through which Maxwell and Epstein’s accusers say that they were subject to abuse was by being tasked with giving the older man “massages.”
Espinosa also said she can “attribute my career right now as an executive assistant to what I learned supporting Ghislaine.”
Subscribe
Gain access to all our Premium contents.More than 100+ articles.
