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Federal Authorities Give Minimal Detail On Why It Took 24 Years To Arrest Ghislaine Maxwell

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Federal authorities provided minimal detail when the Daily Caller News Foundation questioned why it took so long for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged cohort Ghislaine Maxwell to be arrested.

A grand jury indicted Maxwell on charges of conspiracy to entice minors to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors for illegal sex acts, transportation of a minor to engage in illegal sex acts, and perjury.

She was arrested at 8:30 am Thursday morning in Bradford, New Hampshire, temporarily held in Merrimack County Jail and then transferred to a New York prison Monday. 

The Daily Caller News Foundation pressed the FBI, the New York Police Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District Of New York as to why it took so long for Maxwell to be arrested in light of allegations made against her as early as 1996.

Accuser Maria Farmer told The New York Times that in 1996, she told the FBI and the NYPD that Epstein and Maxwell had sexually molested both her and her sister. She also said that the NYPD referred her to the FBI regarding her allegations of assault.

The FBI has not acknowledged that she contacted them, the Times notes, and the NYPD did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the DCNF.

The FBI declined to address questions about Farmer and her allegations to the DCNF and directed further query to the USANYS.

Asked why it took so long to arrest Maxwell, USANYS spokesman Nicholas Biase told the DCNF in an email: “We bring criminal cases when they are ready to be brought and when we are confident we can prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Biase’s reply came shortly before USANYS Chief Public Information Officer James Margolin told the DCNF in an email that USANYS would not be commenting on the matter.

Farmer insisted to the Times the FBI would have records of when she contacted them in 1996, since she was later contacted by the FBI in 2006 when she lived in North Carolina. Heavily redacted documents obtained by the Times also show that the FBI interviewed two alleged victims in 2006 – victims who allege that Maxwell and Epstein sexually abused them.

The FBI and USANYS also refused to tell the DCNF what steps they are taking to ensure Maxwell’s safety in light of Epstein’s apparent suicide in a New York City jail in August 2019.