Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was charged on Monday for the first time with sex-trafficking of a minor, as federal prosecutors accused her of grooming a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual acts with Mr. Epstein and later paying her.
A new federal indictment filed in Manhattan charged that on multiple occasions between 2001 and 2004, the girl provided nude massages to Mr. Epstein at his Palm Beach, Florida, residence, during which he engaged in sex acts with her.
The new charges against Ms. Maxwell go further than those contained in an earlier indictment that accused her of helping Mr. Epstein recruit, groom and ultimately sexually abuse girls, but did not include sex-trafficking allegations.
The new indictment says that after the girl provided Mr. Epstein with the massages, Ms. Maxwell or others who worked for him paid the girl hundreds of dollars in cash.
The new indictment comes almost nine months after Ms. Maxwell, 59, once a fixture on New York’s social scene, was arrested in New Hampshire on charges she had lured underage girls — one as young as 14 — into Mr. Epstein’s orbit, and contributed to his abuse of them.
The new indictment issued on Monday cites an additional 14-year-old girl who is identified only as Minor Victim-4.
Ms. Maxwell has been jailed since her arrest last July and is awaiting a trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan. She pleaded not guilty to the original charges.
The new indictment also says Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell each encouraged the girl to recruit other young women to provide sexualized massages to Mr. Epstein.
In response, the indictment says, the girl brought multiple women and girls to provide erotic massages for Mr. Epstein, and both she and the person she recruited were paid hundreds of dollars in cash.
Mr. Epstein, 66, hanged himself in his cell at a jail in Manhattan in August 2019, a month after his arrest on charges that he sexually exploited and abused dozens of girls and women at his mansion in Manhattan, his estate in Palm Beach, and other locations.
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