Defense case in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial enters second day

[December 17, 2021]  By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ghislaine Maxwell's defense lawyers on Friday will once again attempt to persuade jurors in the British socialite's sex abuse trial that the accounts of her four accusers are not credible.

Her lawyers indicated they could rest their case as soon as Friday afternoon or Monday morning, paving the way for closing arguments next week in the trial of the onetime associate of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The trial, which began on Nov. 29, is moving at a faster pace than initially expected.

Maxwell, 59, is accused of recruiting teenage girls to have sexual encounters with Epstein. She has pleaded not guilty, and her attorneys argue that prosecutors are treating her as a stand-in for Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges.

Four women who testified for the prosecution placed Maxwell at the center of their relationships with Epstein, and said she groomed them as teenagers by discussing inappropriate sexual topics or touching their breasts.

Undermining the women's credibility is crucial for the defense. Maxwell's attorneys have argued the women's memories have become corrupted over time, and that they are motivated by money to implicate Maxwell.

They plan to call a male associate of Kate, a pseudonym for one of the accusers. Bobbi Sternheim, a lawyer for Maxwell, said on Thursday that the defense wanted to question him about statements Kate made to him that show "motive and bias."

Ghislaine Maxwell speaks with her attorney Bobbi Sternheim during the trial of Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein associate accused of sex trafficking, in a courtroom sketch in New York City, U.S., December 16, 2021. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

Jurors will also hear from Robert Glassman, an attorney for another accuser known as Jane, about whether he told Jane that cooperating with prosecutors would help a claim she made to a victims' compensation fund run by Epstein's estate.

On Thursday, jurors heard testimony from Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who studies how people can form false memories based on information they are told after an event takes place.

Earlier in the day, a former Maxwell executive assistant testified that she never saw her boss have inappropriate contact with underage girls.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Grant McCool)

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