Day 3 of the Ghislaine Maxwell Trial included the Defense cross examining the alleged victim "Jane."
Two of Maxwell’s siblings, Kevin and Isabel, were among the spectators in the courtroom on Wednesday. The family has insisted she’s innocent. They even went so far at to complain to the United Nations that her detainment is illegal.
Today the victim with the pseudonym "Jane" once again took the stand, where the Defense for Maxwell cross examined her. They again made an attempt to attack Jane's credibility by asking why she waited over 20 years to report the alleged abuse by Maxwell to law enforcement. And Maxwell’s attorney asked Jane, an actor, about her television roles — a cancer patient, a car crash victim, someone with mental health issues, a prostitute — suggesting she may have applied her professional craft as an actress to her testimony.
The last one “was not my favorite role,” Jane said before pushing back on Menninger’s characterizations of her work as melodramatic.
You want to call it ‘melodramatic.’ I prefer ‘dramatic,’” she said.
“Jane” had once told investigators that Mr. Epstein flew her to New York on his private jet to see “The Lion King” on Broadway in 1994, when she was 14. By then, according to the vivid account Jane testified to on Tuesday, Mr. Epstein and his longtime companion, Ms. Maxwell, had already pulled her into a pattern of persistent sexual abuse.
Ms. Maxwell’s lawyer, Laura Menninger, pounced on the 1994 date.
“The Lion King did not come out until 1997?” Ms. Menninger asked the witness. Questioned at length, Jane testified that she had been “incorrect in my timeline.”
Apparently, "Jane's" testimony is not credible because she couldn't recall the year Epstein flew her to New York to see the Lion King. Can you hear my sarcasm?
She later choked up when a prosecutor asked her at the conclusion of her testimony why she didn’t reveal everything about her experience with Epstein in her initial meetings with prosecutors.
“Because it was too difficult — too difficult emotionally, too difficult on every level,” she said.
Lawyer Laura Menninger later attempted to undermine the accuser’s memory, which will tie in with the expert on "false memories" they are planning on calling to take the stand.
Ms Menninger said that Jane had given different accounts of her first meeting with Epstein and Maxwell at the Interlochen arts Academy in Michigan in 1994.
“You have come up with the memory in the last two years?” Ms Menninger asked Jane on the witness stand, to which Jane responded, “I don’t believe I have come up with memory, no.”
Ms Menninger then told the court that Jane does not recall whether Ms Maxwell ever touched her.
“That’s not true,” Jane said.
Jane then cried when she was asked about being awarded $5 million from a Jeffrey Epstein victim compensation fund.
The accuser paused for about 30 seconds and wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue after she was asked by a prosecutor to describe what the cash meant to her.
“I wish I would have never received that money in the first place because of what happened,” Jane responded, her voice breaking.
Jane’s ex-boyfriend, a fellow actor identified by the pseudonym “Matt,” also took the stand.
He testified about what Jane, one of Maxwell’s accusers, told him about her relationship with Epstein.
Matt described his girlfriend of eight years as “shaken, embarrassed, horrified,” when she discussed her relationship with the pedophile. “She would say, ‘Matt, the money wasn’t f–ing free,” but didn’t go into more detail, he said.
The last witness to take the stand, was Daniel Vesselsen of Interlochen School of Arts. He confirmed Jeffrey Epstein was a Major Donor for the school, and denied having record of witness "Jane" and her siblings having attended.
Outside the courthouse, Maxwell's siblings gave a "Press Conference" where no questions were allowed to be asked. Part 1 & 2:
My favorite quote from witness Matt during his testimony today:
"AUSA-Did Jane tell you what happened between her and Jeffrey Epstein? Matt: Not specifically.
AUSA Moe: Did she say why he gave her money?
Matt: She just said, "it was not free"
Indeed, the Maxwell/Epstein organization used money as a means to silence, shame and blackmail those less fortunate, and vulnerable in society for their own perverted pleasure. I believe the defense showed just that today, in their attempt to discredit those who were Maxwell and Epstein's victims.
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