Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate, moved to federal prison in Texas

CBS News

a day ago

Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been transferred from a federal correctional facility in Tallahassee, Florida, to a facility in Bryan, Texas, CBS News has learned. No reason was given for the move.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence after she was convicted in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls. An appeal of her conviction is currently awaiting action by the Supreme Court, which is set to discuss whether to take up her case at its closed-door conference in late September.
Maxwell had been held at the federal correctional institute in Tallahassee, a low-security facility with a population of nearly 1,200 inmates. The federal prison camp in Bryan, where she's been moved, is considered minimum security and houses 635 inmates, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The move was condemned in a statement by several of Epstein and Maxwell's accusers, including the family of Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year.
"It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received. Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency. Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas. This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes," they said in a statement.
"The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender. The Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar. This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better," the statement continued.
The transfer comes days after Maxwell met with Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee to discuss Epstein's case last week. Her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, said she answered all of Blanche's questions across two days of talks. Blanche sought to interview Maxwell as the White House and Justice Department have faced pressure to release more information about Epstein and the files the government amassed during its investigation.
The backlash arose after the Justice Department and FBI released a memo earlier this month that concluded Epstein did not have a "client list" and confirmed he died by suicide in jail in 2019, shortly after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
The memo also concluded that there was no "credible evidence" that the disgraced financier blackmailed prominent people. The Justice Department and FBI said they did not plan to release any further information about Epstein's case.
But the findings frustrated some of President Trump's allies, who were skeptical of the Justice Department's claim that there is nothing left to divulge.
In addition to Blanche's interview with Maxwell, the Justice Department asked federal judges in New York who handled Epstein's and Maxwell's cases to unseal transcripts from those grand jury proceedings.
Congressional investigators have also subpoenaed Maxwell to sit for a deposition. But Markus, her lawyer, said she would only be willing to provide lawmakers with information if she were granted immunity by a House committee or clemency by Mr. Trump.
Epstein was initially investigated by federal authorities in Florida in the 2000s, which ended in a federal non-prosecution agreement and a guilty plea on state prostitution charges in 2008. He was arrested again on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and was awaiting trial at the time of his death, which the medical examiner ruled a suicide.Scott MacFarlane
contributed to this report.