Ghislaine Maxwell, a former socialite and close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking by a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.
Maxwell is 60 years old, meaning that even with time off for good behavior and credit for the two years she has already spent in prison, Maxwell won't see the outside of a jail cell until well into her 70s, The New York Times notes.
In December 2021, Maxwell was convicted of five charges related to her procurement of young women — some as young as 14 — for Epstein to sexually abuse. "It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein," Maxwell said at the sentencing hearing. Her lawyers say she plans to appeal her conviction.
Epstein was found hanged in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex crime charges. In February, Jean-Luc Brunel — another Epstein associate who was awaiting trial in France for allegedly raping minors — was found dead in his cell under similar circumstances. According to The New York Post, Maxwell was placed on suicide watch on Friday. Her lawyers insisted that their client is not suicidal.