Last Friday — and then again this Tuesday — the Justice Department released the Epstein files. The documents were incomplete and heavily redacted, angering the Congress members who’d pushed for the release for months. Among the thousands of documents were the grand jury records from the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of hundreds of girls over the course of years.
Barry Levine, the author of The Spider: Inside the Tangled Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, traced Maxwell’s path into Epstein’s orbit — from favored daughter of a media tycoon to the accomplice to hundreds of crimes. Levine spoke with Today, Explained host Noel King about Maxwell’s life story and what her relationship with President Donald Trump might mean for her in the coming years. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
What was Maxwell’s upbringing like?
Well, Ghislaine grew up in England in a mansion with 50 or 60 rooms. Her father, of course, was Robert Maxwell, the famous Fleet Street media tycoon. She was the youngest of their nine children.
It was a very strange upbringing in the sense that her father was extremely explosive, and he demanded a great deal of his children. Ghislaine’s mother, Elizabeth, later, in her autobiography, said that her husband Robert would fly into these rages and subject the children to humiliation and harsh treatment, including corporal punishment.
So she grew up privy to a life of obscene luxury. However, it was a very difficult life growing up under her father,
Has she expressed hostility or resentment towards her father in the years since?
No. In fact, she embraced [her role]. She was daddy’s little girl in [every] sense. And not only were they close as she was growing up, but [her father] also wanted to groom her for the family business.
When Robert Maxwell acquired Macmillan Publishing in 1988, along with the New York Daily News, the person that he brought with him from England was his daughter Ghislaine. She was well-known and had a tremendous Rolodex of contacts of the rich and famous. And so Robert Maxwell wanted to tap into that.
Her father’s story ended in tragedy, is that right?
Her father and his sons — Kevin and Ian — had a battle with the Bank of England for defaulting on close to 75 million in loans.
[During that episode,] he was on a yacht off the coast of the Canary Islands, his yacht — which was named after Ghislaine, the Lady Ghislaine — and he was seen on the deck early that morning, and then he had fallen overboard.
His body was found 12 hours later in the Atlantic Ocean by Spanish fishermen. An autopsy interestingly revealed that there were no signs of foul play. The people around the Maxwell family believed it to be a suicide.
What did Ghislaine think?
Ghislaine didn’t want to believe that her father would take his life. So she said this was a result of a dark conspiracy involving [Israeli special forces] renegades and Sicilian contract killers who were responsible for her father’s death.
How did Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein meet?
Ghislaine and Jeffrey Epstein never specifically cited where they in fact met. It was very mysterious how the two of them came together at that time. And then, of course, they show up together at a fashion show in Paris in 1992.
You have to remember at the time that Ghislaine was really not herself. She was extremely distraught after her father’s death. People who I interviewed for my book said she was constantly crying. She was constantly breaking down. She was really not in any type of good graces. She moved into a small New York apartment, really just kind of wondering what her future was going to be.
And then all of a sudden she’s with Jeffrey Epstein, and she is spending time at his townhouse mansion on the Upper East Side. Jeffrey Epstein was able to provide this type of super wealthy lifestyle that she had become accustomed to.
How did Ghislaine Maxwell become part of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse?
Well, about two years into their relationship, Jeffrey Epstein invited Ghislaine Maxwell to travel with him to northern Michigan in the spring of 1994. There was a music camp there called the Interlochen School. Jeffrey Epstein had studied there as a young student from Brooklyn, New York, after he made his money. The school erected a Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge in his honour because Jeffrey Epstein gave the music school financial gifts.
So Ghislaine Maxwell goes with Jeffrey in 1994 to this music school, and Jeffrey Epstein met a 13-year-old girl there who is identified in court documents as a Jane Doe. And Jeffrey Epstein approached this girl and said, “You have talent. I would like to bring you to Palm Beach, Florida where I live, and I want to provide for you private voice lessons — and myself and Ghislaine — [and] we will take care of you. We will put you up in a nice place to live.”
They met the girl’s mother and invited the girl’s mother to their Palm Beach estate. And Ghislaine played the role of Jeffrey Epstein’s love interest, really legitimising the deal for the mother, seeming that this was a couple that was going to take care of [her] daughter, and it was a teenager’s dream to hang out in a mansion, be lavished with clothing and gifts.
But then it went to the dark side. Ghislaine was instructed by Jeffrey Epstein to groom this 13-year-old girl into learning about sexual positions. This was, to me, the rubber hitting the road in the sense that Ghislaine Maxwell was now becoming a co-conspirator to Jeffrey Epstein and basically feeding this young child to the wolf.
How did Maxwell’s role in the abuse change or evolve with time?
When they returned to Palm Beach, Ghislaine Maxwell was instructed by Jeffrey Epstein to begin finding other girls.
Ghislaine Maxwell would recruit girls from the local schools, from local parks. She would have Jeffrey Epstein’s driver drive around. She would spot a girl. She would say, “Would you like to make a couple hundred dollars giving my friend a massage?” Of course that was code for the sexual abuse that would take place. And then they would pay these girls $200, $300, and the girls were asked to recruit other girls that they knew.
Ghislaine was in charge of overseeing this entire operation. She would present herself as this big sister, even a motherly type of individual to welcome these young girls. It boggles the mind why she would do this, why she would destroy the childhoods of these minors.
Where is Maxwell now?
Well, Ghislaine has been moved to a minimum-security dorm-like facility in Texas from the federal facility lockup that she was in Florida. And this had to do with the fawning interview that she gave recently to [United States Deputy Attorney General] Todd Blanche that she never witnessed any wrongdoing involving Donald Trump while he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, [and that] he didn’t know anything about any of this.
Ghislaine, as a reward, I believe, was moved to this minimum-security facility. She’s working on asking for clemency from the President.
Do you think Maxwell could receive a pardon from President Trump?
Donald Trump knew Ghislaine Maxwell going back to the late 1980s. I don’t think it’s far-fetched that Donald Trump could do this.
It would be to the absolute horror of the Epstein and Maxwell survivors for Ghislaine to be pardoned. I think that [it] would cause traumas for [her victims] today if Ghislaine Maxwell was pardoned. She belongs behind bars for the remainder of her sentence.
