EXCLUSIVE The moment Jeffrey Epstein's twisted love affair with Ghislaine Maxwell is captured for the first time, as the starry-eyed couple are seen at Trump's Plaza Hotel gala
Ghislaine Maxwell 's affair with the pedophile wasn't just love - it was also wealth, power and security. And for Epstein, it meant access to her elite network of royalty, billionaires and influential figures.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Woman hurled in jail after letting grass in front of her home go brown during hot weather
A woman in Florida was thrown in jail after letting the grass in front of her home go brown during hot weather, violating HOA guidelines. Irena Green was arrested and spent a week in jail after a battle with her homeowner's association in Hillsborough County over browning grass in front of her home. 'I think they have way too much power,' Green told ABC news. 'I've never heard of anything like this in my life.' Green said her grass is often not green due to a large tree that's planted near her sidewalk, as well as mandatory watering restrictions that were put in place last year following a drought. She claimed, however, that her lawn was not the worst looking in the Riverview Creek View subdivision. 'If you drive around my neighborhood, you'll see there's plenty of yards not up to par,' she added. The Trowbridge Company Inc., the HOA management company, began notifying her of the violations, which spanned a range of issues including her browning lawn and a dirty mailbox, Green said. 'The grass had started turning brown. So they started sending notes, and it went from the grass being brown to there's a dent in my garage.' Green said the grass often isn't green in her yard due to a large tree that's planted near her sidewalk as well as mandatory watering restrictions last year following a drought On May 23, as she drove home with her daughter, she was pulled over and asked to step out of her vehicle and she was arrested and booked into the Orient Road Jail Green also was notified of violations including owning a commercial cargo van, which is not the only in her neighborhood, ABC reported. But as she failed to comply with the guidelines and respond to a request for mediation, the HOA filed a lawsuit against her alleging that she violated community appearance rules. Yet as she attempted to represent herself in court, she was told last July by the judge that she had around a month to fix the violations. 'My grass had to be brought up to par. He said you can get seed, you can do something, but you've got 30 days to get it corrected. So I said fine. He said if it's not done in 30 days, you're gonna go to jail,' Green told the outlet. Green said she did what she could to comply, even selling her van and cleaning her mailbox. She bought seed and watered her grass, but missed her next court date and claimed she hadn't been notified to appear at the hearing last August. 'I was supposed to receive documentation. Nothing was sent to my home,' Green said. 'And I reached out to the courthouse several times to try to find out when was my court date.' Green said she did what she could to comply, even selling her van and cleaning her mailbox. She bought seed and watered her grass, but missed her next court date and claimed she hadn't been notified to appear at the hearing last August Yet, the judge ordered that she was in contempt of court and a warrant was issued for her arrest. On May 23, as she drove home with her daughter, she was pulled over and asked to step out of her vehicle. 'He asked me can I get out. When I got out he said, "Ms. green, did you know that you have a warrant for your arrest?"' Green said. She was arrested and booked into the Orient Road Jail, according to ABC News. Yet, she was placed into custody without bond. 'So I couldn't even go home to my family. I sat in there for seven days. Seven days in the jailhouse like a criminal,' she added. Green described the process of being booked into the jail as 'horrible.' 'I work hard to buy this home for me and my kids in a better neighborhood and environment and to be taken to jail and to be treated like that for brown grass at my own home... that's horrible,' she said. She even described being held in jail with other inmates who queried why she was being held in custody. 'One girl, she kind of came over and asked me like "Hey, what are you in here for?" And I told her it was like for my grass,' Green said. 'And she's like 'Oh grass, they should make that stuff legal'. She's thinking that I'm talking about weed and I'm talking about my front yard grass.' Green's sister, a paralegal, filed a petition six-days after she was booked into the jail which requested an emergency hearing. 'I went to court, and I had to be shackled from my hands to my feet,' Green said as she recalled being the only person in county civil court wearing a jail uniform. In court, the HOA's attorney even opposed her release, Green said: 'He says "Well, it hasn't been resodded. The whole yard needs to be re-sodded." And she's like not from those pictures I see. She's like "No. I want her released immediately."' 'He wanted me to continue to sit in jail and not come home to my family,' she added. In a statement to the outlet, the Creek View HOA Board of Directors said: 'Ms. Green received notices of violations. She disregarded them. Legal action was filed by the Association after she failed to accept the offer to mediate the matter, pre-suit, as is required before a lawsuit can be filed...' 'After suit was filed and final judgment was entered against her, Ms. Green showed up for the court hearing on July 11, 2024... At the July 11 hearing, with Ms. Green present, another court date was set by the judge for August 19, 2024. 'She was instructed to comply with the requirements of the final judgment by August 19 and to report to the judge what was accomplished on August 19. Ms. Green failed to show up in court on August 19. 'Her failure to abide by the Court's instruction led to the arrest warrant being steps were taken by the Court due to Ms. Green's failure to comply with the Court's instructions.' While Green was released the next day following her hearing, she said: 'I definitely wish I would have hired a lawyer.'
The Guardian
9 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Musk's X must face claim of negligence over child abuse images, judge rules
A federal appeals court on Friday revived part of a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk's X of becoming a haven for child exploitation, though the court said the platform deserves broad immunity from claims over objectionable content. While rejecting some claims, the ninth US circuit court of appeals in San Francisco said X, formerly Twitter, must face a claim it was negligent by failing to promptly report a video containing explicit images of two underage boys to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The case predated Musk's 2022 purchase of Twitter. A trial judge had dismissed the case in December 2023. X's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Musk was not a defendant. One plaintiff, John Doe 1, said he was 13 when he and a friend, John Doe 2, were lured, on Snapchat, into providing nude photos of themselves to someone John Doe 1 thought was a 16-year-old girl at his school. The Snapchat user was actually a child abuse images trafficker who blackmailed the plaintiffs into providing additional photos. Those images were later compiled into a video that was posted on Twitter. According to court papers, Twitter took nine days after learning about the content to take it down and report it to NCMEC, following more than 167,000 views, court papers showed. Circuit judge Danielle Forrest said section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over user content, did not shield X from the negligence claim once it learned about the images. 'The facts alleged here, coupled with the statutory 'actual knowledge' requirement, separates the duty to report child pornography to NCMEC from Twitter's role as a publisher,' she wrote for a three-judge panel. X must also face a claim its infrastructure made it too difficult to report child abuse images. It was found immune from claims it knowingly benefited from sex trafficking, and created search features that 'amplify' child abuse images posts. Dani Pinter, a lawyer at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement: 'We look forward to discovery and ultimately trial against X to get justice and accountability.'
Times
34 minutes ago
- Times
How drivers were sold a car finance compensation fantasy
Britain has narrowly avoided a costly car finance compensation free-for-all after a landmark court ruling derailed chances of a payout for millions of drivers. Claims lawyers had been bombarding consumers with adverts suggesting they may have been entitled to thousands of pounds in a scandal over hidden commission on car finance deals. The scandal had been expected to rival the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, which cost banks more than £38 billion. It was thought that nearly 15 million drivers could be entitled to payouts worth as much as £44 billion in total — although Friday's Supreme Court ruling means the numbers are set to be far smaller. Questions have now been raised over whether those using car finance really lost out and how many of them deserve compensation at all. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had tried to intervene ahead of the ruling — arguing that a colossal compensation bill for the industry would damage the economy and consumers. The Supreme Court ruled on three cases where consumers bought cars on finance and argued that they had been treated unfairly because they had not been told about commission involved in their deals — which ranged from £183 to £1,651. The court rejected two of the three cases, but upheld a complaint by Marcus Johnson, a factory worker from south Wales — because in his case the £1,651 commission in his loan was 55 per cent of the fee (including interest) on his loan over five years. 'The fact that the undisclosed commission was so high is a powerful indication that the relationship between Mr Johnson and the lender was unfair,' the court's judgment said. It leaves the door open to claims for compensation on deals that contained large amounts of commission, or where the commission model influenced what they paid. How much would be needed for a deal to be unfair is something that is likely to be decided by the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which said it would confirm if it would introduce a redress scheme before stock markets open on Monday morning. The FCA had been investigating finance deals that had used a model called discretionary commission, which incentivised dealers to give customers a worse interest rate on their loan. However, a judgment by the Court of Appeal last October opened the door to compensation claims by millions of motorists who had bought cars on finance, regardless of the commission model. Lenders appealed to the Supreme Court over the ruling. About nine in ten cars are bought on finance and £39.7 billion was borrowed on more than two million cars in the year to May, according to the Finance and Leasing Association, a trade body. The Court of Appeal had ruled in October that car dealers had a duty to make clear the nature and value of any commission paid to them to ensure that borrowers could give 'informed consent' before agreeing to a deal. Reeves was among those concerned about a claims free-for-all, with the Treasury reportedly drawing up contingency plans to shield lenders from having to pay out billions of pounds in compensation. The Treasury attempted to intervene in the Supreme Court case, arguing that a ruling had 'the potential to adversely affect the United Kingdom's reputation as a place to do business, with a consequent impact on economic growth'. In the meantime complaints about car loans to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), a body that solves disputes, have risen from 4,130 in the first three months of 2023-24 to 37,230 in the last three months of 2024-25. Most of these have been brought by claims companies and no-win, no-fee law firms that file complaints on behalf of consumers in return for up to 30 per cent of any compensation. These companies have swamped radio, social media and television with adverts that tell consumers they could be owed thousands of pounds. On Thursday the FCA said it had required 224 adverts from claims firms about car finance to either be taken down or changed. There had been highly speculative figures advertised for how much consumers could get back, it said, including compensation figures that did not make clear they covered multiple car loans and misleading claims that refunds were guaranteed. It said companies had been signing up consumers without their consent after they clicked on adverts. Philip Salter, a former FCA regulator now at the consultancy Sicsic Advisory, said: 'I haven't liked a lot of the claims company advertising. You've had a lot of companies arguing that time is running out, but the clock hasn't even started. It's been a bit of an unseemly scramble.' • Common sense has triumphed over compensation culture If there is to be compensation for consumers, it is expected that the FCA will announce a free redress scheme where lenders will contact those eligible, meaning consumers should not need to use a claims company. Gary Greenwood from the investment bank Shore Capital said: 'It's one of those things where if you go by the letter of the law of the previous Court of Appeal judgment, you're almost coming to the conclusion that commission is bad. But the problem is that if you look at the reality of what had happened, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of consumer harm that's gone on. 'So any sort of redress has got to come down to: has there been any consumer harm here, or are people just trying to claim money back on a technicality?' Greenwood said. Charlie Nunn, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, which runs Britain's biggest car finance lender, Black Horse, has denied the scandal was on the same level as PPI. 'Some 80 per cent of people need finance to buy a new car, and a large number of second-hand car buyers do as well,' he told The Times in January. 'We need a well-functioning motor finance industry that supports consumers.' The National Franchised Dealers Association, a trade body, told the Supreme Court that 'nobody goes to a car dealer with a reasonable expectation that it is acting without self-interest in relation to any of the products it sells'. The Supreme Court's judgment could have been the difference between lenders facing a compensation bill of £11 billion — for complaints about a specific form of commission — and £29 billion, according to Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, an investment bank. It could also have led to compensation claims about the sale of other financial products such as insurance where commission was involved but not properly disclosed. Consumers in turn could have had to foot the bill. Stuart Masson, the editor of the advice website The Car Expert UK, said that if lenders have to pay compensation to millions of people, car finance could get more expensive in the future as the industry tries to 'claw back' that money. 'That's not money they're going to find down the back of the sofa,' he told the BBC. 'They're going to have to get that back from increasing the costs of future lending, which won't just be on car finance. It could be on credit cards, it could be on personal loans, it could be on mortgages.' In January Reeves told bankers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: 'There is nothing pro-consumer about making it harder for people to buy an affordable car for their family.' Before the courts widened the scope of possible mis-selling, the FCA had been investigating a specific model of commission called discretionary commission. This is where the cut that lenders paid dealers was linked to the interest rate consumers were charged, incentivising dealers to charge borrowers more. This model was used in about 35 per cent of car finance deals, according to the FCA, before it banned the practice in January 2021. The FCA said consumers could have paid about £1,100 more in interest over a four-year £10,000 car finance deal because of this commission model — which is being used as the basis for many of the estimates around possible compensation. Salter, who worked on the ban when he was at the FCA, said: 'That previous Court of Appeal ruling surprised me. I think everyone knows that if they're buying a car the salesman's getting commission, don't they? But discretionary commission never felt right to me.' The FCA began its investigation in January last year on whether consumers had been properly told about the link between their repayments and the commission. The investigation was kicked off by two rulings by the ombudsman against Lloyds and Barclays last year, which ordered the banks to refund two consumers more than £1,000 each. The FCA is expected to set out its next steps, including whether there will be a redress scheme, within six weeks. Any scheme would be free and easy for consumers to use, it said, while the FOS is also free for consumers to appeal to. Rob Lilley-Jones from the consumer group Which? said: 'It's vital that finance firms are held accountable for mis-selling and if a large number of motorists are eligible for compensation consumers are likely to be bombarded with ads from claims firms offering to take on their case. 'Affected customers should be careful when enlisting the services of claims management companies as the wrong choice could lead to their case being poorly handled, losing a significant portion of the compensation in legal fees — or both.' Coby Benson from the law firm Bott & Co, which helped win the ombudsman's case against Lloyds, said the experience from PPI was that consumers could sometimes recover more money by going to court than through a redress scheme. He said: 'We would support a proactive redress scheme if it fairly compensated consumers. But we have doubts over the effective implementation of a scheme, because our data shows that about half of clients have a different address now to that which the lender had from the time of the agreement.'
