On July 2, 2020 the FBI arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, prompting an email from a former NYC district attorney to federal prosecutors warning that she might be targeted for murder, like Jeffrey Epstein
On July 2, 2020, after years of eluding justice for trafficking underage girls for her former boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in the tiny rural town of Bradford, New Hampshire.
At the time, then Assistant Director of the New York FBI field office, William Sweeney, said Maxwell “slithered away to a gorgeous property and continued to live a life of privilege.”
On that summer day, her luxe life came to an abrupt end, a little less than a year after her criminal compatriot in a sprawling international sex trafficking operation, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
The late Jeffrey Epstein pictured in 2005 with Ghislaine MaxwellCredit: Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
As Maxwell was transported from the picturesque New England town across wooden covered bridges in handcuffs and shackles that July afternoon nearly six years ago, an email was sent to a redacted individual, a federal prosecutor who was on the team in Manhattan’s Southern District, who built a case against Epstein’s cohort. The former Kings County prosecutor, whose name was not redacted, warned that many of their law enforcement colleagues believed that Epstein’s death “was a homicide.”
The retired prosecutor went on to say that he hoped federal officials would keep Maxwell “isolated in a private cell and monitored 24/7,” as a way to keep her alive so she could face justice. Justice, the retired prosecutor wrote, had been denied in 2008 when then-United States Attorney for Miami Alex Acosta negotiated a non-prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein. The highly unusual agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges and serve 13 months in work release. As part of the deal, Epstein and all of his cohorts, including Maxwell, received immunity from federal prosecution.
Email sent by a retired state prosecutor to a redacted federal prosecutor, saying Epstein was likely the victim of a ‘homicide,’ sent on the day Ghislaine Maxwell was tracked to a quaint New Hampshire town and arrested by the FBICredit: Department of Justice
The email is contained in a trove of evidence released by the Department of Justice as part of the Epstein Transparency Act. Last week Los Angeles reported new details about Epstein’s last hours alive, which have raised serious questions that are now at the center of a Congressional inquiry into Epstein’s vast influence, including at the MCC, by the House Oversight Committee.
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On Aug. 9, according to an FBI report in the Justice Department’s document release, “Epstein’s cell mate, Efrain Reyes, was released from the MCC, leaving Epstein alone in his cell.” That same day, Epstein was taken off suicide watch, records show.
Efrain Reyes was moved out of Epstein’s cell hours before federal Bureau of Prisons officials say they found Epstein dead on Aug. 10, 2019Credit: Department of Justice
Hours after he hung up with his girlfriend, at 6:30 on Aug. 10, 2019, a grisly discovery was made in cell #220 on the 9th floor of the MCC. There, the FBI wrote in a report, “Epstein was found with a make-shift noose around his neck in an apparent suicide.”
Congress now wants to interrogate one of the two MCC prison guards who was there when Epstein was found dead. Tova Noel and another guard were federally charged after Epstein’s death, but those charges were later dropped. Noel, the Epstein files show, Googled his name before he died, and her bank had flagged questionable deposits around that same time.
Maxwell was convicted in 2022 by a federal jury in Manhattan on charges connected to procuring minors to service Epstein – and, according to the Epstein files and multiple civil lawsuits – other high-profile men and sentenced to two decades in prison. She was recently moved to a minimum security prison, infuriating many, including California Congressman Ro Khanna, who fought for the release of the Epstein files.