- [Narrator] Search through pictures
of almost any society event of the '90s and 2000s
and you'll probably see her, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Sometimes she's dead center in frame, living it up,
but occasionally you catch her on the dark periphery
of a photo, and those are the perplexing portraits
that emerge of Ghislaine Maxwell,
on one hand the graceful socialite,
and on the other, according to her accusers,
a woman who lurked at the edge of high society,
scouting and procuring young women
to give to Jeffrey Epstein.
But maybe the most perplexing thing,
despite the intense scrutiny of Epstein's crimes,
and her possible role in them,
Ghislaine Maxwell has largely disappeared,
and many of her alleged victims are still without justice.
Here's the mystery of the woman next to Jeffrey Epstein.
Ghislaine Maxwell has denied any allegations
of wrongdoing brought against her.
(light music)
Ghislaine Maxwell's TED Talk is
still up on the internet.
- So I'd like to share with you today why I believe
the ocean should be front page news,
why we should be worrying about it.
- [Narrator] As is her TED Talk speaker bio.
You can actually see how she introduces herself
to her audience.
It's impressive, she's described as being a president
of two organizations, a certified EMT,
a pilot of submarines and helicopters,
and yet, there's allegedly this other side.
It's unclear when and how and why the Epstein
and Maxwell partnership began,
but cameras were catching them together
at Mar-a-Lago parties as early as 1992.
At that point, she'd only been in America for about a year,
having fled tragedy and scandal in England.
Her father, Robert Maxwell, a media and publishing tycoon
who owned the "Daily Mirror," disappeared off his yacht,
the Lady Ghislaine, in 1991.
What happened to him is still a mystery.
To add to the trauma, Robert was then accused
of defrauding his employees' pension plan
for some $600 million.
The sudden loss of her father's support
and her family's good name meant that
the upper crust Maxwell, who grew up in a 53 room mansion
and attended Oxford, had to live
a relatively modest lifestyle when she got back to New York.
She even sold real estate for a while.
But exactly what Epstein and Maxwell were
is almost as unclear as when and how.
It is clear that they dated for a few years,
but according to "The Guardian,"
things changed when Maxwell realized
Epstein wasn't going to marry her.
Of course, they still looked like a couple in public,
but they spoke about their relationship differently.
Epstein called Maxwell his "best friend" in an infamous
2003 interview, and although Epstein claimed
she wasn't on his payroll, according to depositions,
Maxwell took over running the staffing
and finances of his many households.
From there, the accusations are numerous.
We start to see a pattern.
Maxwell was allegedly in charge of recruitment.
Accusers say she would trawl for young,
often economically disadvantaged women,
and offer them a cushy job.
It worked.
Maxwell was elegant, generous, British upper class,
so the young women allegedly trusted her
when she brought them to Epstein.
As early as 1993, maybe just two years
into their relationship, a Miss Maxwell
using Jeffrey Epstein's number was hiring
yoga instructors for private lessons.
This is the actual ad.
It's since come out that the earliest alleged victim
may have been in 1994.
But if a girl grew uneasy about Epstein's advances,
Maxwell became employee relations.
She sometimes allegedly used Epstein's wealth
to smooth things over.
It's unbelievable, but according to sworn testimony,
Maxwell would even pretend to be some maternal presence,
once calling a group of young women
she procured for Epstein her children.
- Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had a great way
of normalizing the abuse that was going on.
They kind of made it feel like we were
in this really deranged family.
- [Narrator] But as with everything in the story,
even that was a facade.
The alleged truth is uglier.
If someone spurned his advances, or worse,
dared to leave the Epstein slave ring,
Ghislaine allegedly morphed into an enforcer.
That included physical threats,
according to alleged victim Maria Farmer.
- She told me I needed to watch my back,
that I know you like to go running on the West Side Highway,
and that's not gonna be a safe place for you anymore,
because there are a lot of ways to die
on the West Side Highway.
- [Narrator] And there are other accounts
of just cruel punishment, like when a dazed
and crying Swedish teenager turned up in Manhattan,
alleging that Maxwell took her passport
for refusing to have sex on Epstein's island.
Other alleged victims corroborate this tactic.
But it goes even further than retribution.
Accusers graphically describe how Maxwell sometimes
joined Epstein in sexual assaults.
- Ghislaine started taking off her clothes.
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know what was gonna happen if I said no.
I didn't know what was gonna happen if I screamed.
I just, I did what they said.
- [Narrator] And there was little limit to the abuse.
She allegedly trafficked women
among her wider social circles too,
allegedly including, notably, Prince Andrew.
But maybe the worst thing that Ghislaine Maxwell
is accused of is giving orders that
other female lieutenants followed,
that she created a playbook, that she helped industrialize
sexual abuse of young women for Jeffrey Epstein.
"These girls," Maxwell allegedly told a friend in the '90s,
"are nothing."
So when the initial crime spree ended
with Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 guilty plea
for soliciting prostitution, maybe it's no surprise that
Ghislaine Maxwell appears to have just moved on,
like it was nothing.
This photo is dated just three months later.
After Epstein goes to jail for those 13 months,
she's never pictured with him again.
Sources say she moved on.
But it's obvious when you look at all those photos
that she did maintain all those other connections
that she and Epstein built,
connections to socialites, politicians, and the media.
She even poked her head out of the crowd
at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
The past allegations didn't seem to matter,
even when some of the alleged victims subpoenaed Ghislaine
in 2009 as she was leaving an event.
But by 2012, you get the sense that both Epstein
and Maxwell wanted to change their stories.
He tried to rebrand himself as a philanthropist
and she founded The TerraMar Project,
an NGO that purported to work like a social media network
for the ocean.
- A British woman is hoping to change the status quo
by turning the oceans into an online country.
- [Narrator] Given its maritime mission,
it's perhaps understandable that TerraMar's founder
didn't face scrutiny from CNN, or even the United Nations.
It's unclear whether TerraMar
ever received money from Epstein.
The FBI is investigating that, according to reports,
but it does have some weird links to him,
like her old world was still there.
A 19-year-old who traveled twice on Epstein's plane,
dubbed the Lolita Express by locals,
ended up on TerraMar's founding board of directors,
and Maxwell only killed her deeply in debt NGO
after Epstein was arrested for sex trafficking in 2019.
For years, she had been elusive, moving between houses,
but after the arrest she was gone.
It was a stunning trick for someone
who now had a new level of notoriety.
Newspapers speculated on her whereabouts.
Was it at a friend's in Manchester-by-the-Sea,
as neighbors claimed?
So the internet went nuts when a photo outed her
as she calmly read a book at a Los Angeles
In-N-Out Burger of all places.
But the picture itself was almost certainly misleading.
The date is wrong, and there are signs everywhere
that Maxwell's lawyer took it.
See, it's not just theater.
Her disappearance matters to alleged victims.
If she can't be found, she can't be served,
which means new civil cases filed against her
can't proceed without extra effort and favorable rulings.
And that's just one issue facing
her accusers' quest for justice.
There's also the bizarre and broad plea agreement
that Epstein negotiated in 2008,
which would seem to cover Maxwell.
Although she's not named in it,
it curiously offers immunity
to any potential co-conspirators.
The government has argued that it's only bound
by that agreement in the state of Florida,
leaving Epstein's other domiciles, especially New York,
as possible venues for criminal action.
But that will almost certainly be contested
by Maxwell's lawyers.
The agreement says United States,
and in any court battle Maxwell herself
may prove a vicious opponent.
The genteel socialite side may disappear.
To counter a defamation suit brought by Virginia Giuffre
in 2016, Maxwell's legal team cited decades old
employment records and cheating on a high school boyfriend
to paint her accuser as a liar.
Plus, at least one legal expert says that
proving Maxwell's knowledge of Epstein's activities
may be harder than the allegations make it sound.
It's her versus her accuser.
Finally, there may be unexpected obstacles.
Shortly before the release of this video,
Maxwell's lawyers sought to delay a civil suit
because of an ongoing criminal investigation
into their client.
But none of that, not her pedigree or her connections,
or even her disappearance, has silenced the multiple women
who are now in active litigation against Maxwell.
(dramatic music)