By Matthew Russell Lee, Author on Patreon Song Ruling
BBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Radio - Podcast
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 16 -- Ghislaine Maxwell's first witness was her own personal assistant Cimberly Espinosa. She described Epstein's office on Madison Avenue as a real, ongoing business, with lawyers in one room and she and Ghislaine in another.
No, she said, she never seen sex on top of Epstein's desk.
She had seen "Jane" -- wink, wink, dox, dox -- come to the office, with her mother, and be treated with upmost respect. Yes, these photographs and the cover envelope she had kept all these years were headshots from the soap opera Jane was on. Cimberly with a C knew it because she was a big fan of that soap opera.
When it came time for cross examination, the prosecutor had only one question: Did you ever go to Palm Beach?
No, Espinosa said, apparently awaiting follow up.
"No further questions."
Some said massive burn, but was this approach the right one?
Maxwell's memory decay expert, fresh from telling the same tale about tales for Harvey Weinstein, got different treatment. On direct she described tricking people into mis-remembering seeing Bugs Bunny in Disney World when "as anyone knows" Bugs is owned by Warner Brothers.
"What's up, Doc?" Loftus said.
Kurt repeated it under his breath: What's up with you, Doc? She was charging $600 a hour, Loftus told her handler. The survivors by contrast had gotten three hundred a pop. The prosecutor asked or said, Don't you raise your asking price, Doctor Loftus, each time you testify in for an affluent defendant?
Loftus, not surprisingly, resented the inference. But jurors took notes, and some it was time for a Customs and Border Protection officer, to certify to the entry and re-entry of three of the four survivor witnesses, and a Palm Beach School District records manager to begin authenticating documents from one of Epstein's many fishing pools, before Jean-Luc Brunel's MC2 model agency, with its shows in Morocco in FrancAfrique that Jeffrey would fly to for paid hook-ups, no translation needed.
It had not, Kurt concluded, been about Western Sahara. That was a separate form of exploitation, all about the phosphorous and now wind and solar farms. Epstein had ruled an empire of sleaze on which the sun never set.
After Judge Nathan pulled the plug right at 5 pm, still not having said when she had been for those three days, Kurt ran out to Pearl Street to join the media scrum awaiting the running of the lawyers. He did it live stream, sometimes upside down, until at least a news-maker emerged.
It was Maxwell's silver haired brother again, and as Kurt fell in with the cameramen and -women following his and Isabel Maxwell to the vigil for Uber in front of 40 Foley, Kurt yelled, "Has the United Nations got back to you about your petition?"
"No, not the United Nations," came the reply. Asked and answered. The UN was corrupt, unaccountable at law but incarnation of impunity that Kurt could not leave alone. #MaximumMaxwell.
Note: On October 29, 2021 and again on November 12 Ghislaine Maxwell and the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed a flurry of motions in limine, heavily redacted; the Government argued that trial exhibits are not public and will be withheld. Inner City Press opposed and opposes the continued secrecy.
Inner City Press will cover the trial, and all the comes before and after it; #CourtCaseCast and song I, Song 2, Song 3, fifth song and now Nov 27 song
The underlying case is US v. Maxwell, 20-cr-330 (Nathan).
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