Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, has alleged that Epstein was murdered while in prison. In an interview with a British broadcaster that aired on Monday, Maxwell, the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, stated her belief that Epstein did not die by suicide, as was officially ruled by the autopsy.
Epstein, who was facing charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, died in a New York jail in August 2019. Despite the official conclusion of suicide, Epstein’s death has been the subject of much speculation and conspiracy theories.
"I believe that he was murdered. I was shocked and I wondered how it had happened."
Speaking on Jeffrey Epstein's death, Ghislaine Maxwell says she didn't know "he was so awful" and in hindsight "wishes that she had never met him".@JKyleOfficial | #GhislaineTalkTV pic.twitter.com/8kjFfQAVB5
— Jeremy Kyle Live (@JeremyKyleLive) January 23, 2023
“I believe that he was murdered,” said Maxwell. In 2019, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s brother claimed that evidence suggested Epstein had been murdered, citing multiple fractures found in his neck as being “very unusual for suicide.”
Despite this, the US Department of Justice has not released any evidence of foul play after conducting a years-long investigation into Epstein’s death and how he was able to hang himself inside New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Two prison guards who admitted to falsifying records related to the night Epstein died were charged in 2019 for their alleged failure to monitor him. However, in late 2021, federal prosecutors dismissed the charges after the pair completed community service work as part of an earlier legal agreement.
In the interview, Maxwell, who is currently appealing her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking minors, stated that she regrets ever having met Epstein. She said that when they first met and began a relationship in the late 1990s, she was unaware of how “awful” he was.
During Maxwell’s high-profile trial in New York, US prosecutors were able to establish that she played a crucial role in Epstein’s scheme of luring young girls to give him massages during which he would sexually abuse them, citing her as “the key.”
In an interview that aired on Sunday, Maxwell also disputed the authenticity of a photograph from the early 2000s which shows Prince Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers. Giuffre has claimed that she was sexually trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to the prince, the younger brother of King Charles III. She filed a sexual assault lawsuit against the prince in a US court, claiming that they had engaged in sexual activity when she was a minor.
The prince settled the lawsuit last year, avoiding a public trial. Andrew has maintained his innocence and has not been criminally charged. The photograph, said to have been taken in London in 2001, is considered crucial evidence in the case against the prince.
