Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking

Jeffrey Epstein victims Sarah Ransome and Elizabeth Stein

(Image credit: Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

published 28 June 2022

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.

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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.

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Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.

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