Jury in Ghislaine Maxwell trial asks judge to define ‘enticement’

The jury in Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial resumed its work on Monday as deliberations extended into a second week and jurors asked the judge for a definition of the word “enticement”, a component of two of the charges she faces.

Ms Maxwell (60) is accused of recruiting and grooming four teenage girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, her ex-boyfriend and employer, between 1994 and 2004. Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges.

She has pleaded not guilty to six counts, which include one charge of enticing an underage girl to travel for illegal sexual activity and another count of conspiracy to do the same. Deliberations began last Monday following a three-week trial.

The charge of enticement relates to Jane, the pseudonym for a woman who testified during the trial’s first week that she started having sexual contact with Epstein in 1994 when she was 14, and that Ms Maxwell participated in some of their encounters.

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Jane said she travelled from her home in Palm Beach, Florida, to Epstein’s homes in New York and New Mexico, where she had sexual encounters with him. She said Ms Maxwell assisted with the travel arrangements.

During its first full day of deliberations last Tuesday, the jury requested transcripts of Jane’s testimony as well as that of two other women who said Ms Maxwell set them up for abuse as teenagers.

On Monday, after a four-day break for the Christmas holiday, jurors sent a note to US district judge Alison Nathan asking to review the testimony of Matt, a pseudonym for Jane's ex-boyfriend, as well as the definition of "enticement".

The judge said she would reply that “entice means to attract, induce or lure using hope or desire”, citing previous court cases.

Did not identify Maxwell

The notes jurors have sent so far suggest they are scrutinising carefully accounts from the four women, after Ms Maxwell’s lawyers focused her defence on challenging the accusers’ credibility.

However, the requests do not indicate what jurors are thinking regarding Ms Maxwell’s guilt or innocence.

Matt, who dated Jane from 2006 to 2014, said she had told him about her abuse by Epstein. He said Jane told him that “having a woman there made her feel more comfortable” during her encounters with Epstein.

But Matt said Jane did not tell him that woman was Ms Maxwell until the British socialite was arrested in July 2020.

In addition, the jury asked for testimony of Gregory Parkinson, a retired officer with the Palm Beach Police Department who described a search of Epstein’s Florida mansion. The jury, which is on its third full day of deliberations, also requested different coloured post-it notes, a white board and highlighters of different colours. – Reuters/Bloomberg