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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Ghislaine Maxwell convicted in Epstein sex abuse case, judge orders her financial docs unsealed
2021-12-30
NEW YORK (AP) — The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

The verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico.

Jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty of five of six counts. With the maximum prison terms for each charge ranging from five to 40 years in prison, Maxwell faces the likelihood of years behind bars — an outcome long sought by women who spent years fighting in civil courts to hold her accountable for her role in recruiting and grooming Epstein’s teenage victims and sometimes joining in the sexual abuse.

As the verdict was read, Maxwell was largely stoic behind a black mask. Afterward, Maxwell could be seen pouring herself a cup of water as one of her attorneys patted her on the back. She stood with her hands folded as the jury filed out, and glanced at her siblings — faithfully in attendance each day of the trial — as she herself was led from the courtroom. She did not hug her lawyers on the way out, a marked change from previous days during which Maxwell and her team were often physically affectionate with one another.

The defense had insisted Maxwell was a victim of a vindictive prosecution devised to deliver justice to women deprived of their main villain when Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial in 2019.

During the trial, prosecutors called 24 witnesses to give jurors a picture of life inside Epstein’s homes — a subject of public fascination and speculation ever since his 2006 arrest in Florida in a child sex case.

A housekeeper testified he was expected to be "blind, deaf and dumb" about the private lives of Epstein, a financier who cultivated friendships with influential politicians and business tycoons, and Maxwell, who had led a jet-setting lifestyle as the favorite child of a media mogul.

Courtesy of Besoeker:
Federal judge orders documents about Ghislaine Maxwell's financial affairs to be unsealed, including any ties to the Clintons
Whee! This’ll be fun — for some of us, anyway.
[BLAZE] A federal judge in New York ruled Thursday to unseal court documents in relation to accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered a trove of secret files to be made public this month, some of which could reveal financial ties to the Clintons.

Judge Preska ruled to unseal the court documents that are from a defamation lawsuit brought against Maxwell by alleged Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre that was initiated in 2015. Giuffre brought the lawsuit after Maxwell accused her of lying about being exploited and abused by Maxwell and Epstein.

Giuffre alleges that Maxwell recruited her to train as a masseuse when she was 16 years old, and was later turned into Epstein's "sex slave" from about 1999 to 2002, which included having sex with acquaintances of the convicted pedophile. Giuffre's defamation case against the former British socialite was settled in May 2017.

"Having taken a particularized view of the documents, the court concludes that each document reasonably had a tendency to effect the court's ruling and is thus a judicial document," Preska said during a telephone conference Thursday.
Related:
Ghislaine Maxwell: 2021-12-26 NYT slams judge for ordering publication to remove story about Project Veritas and to return documents it obtained recording communications between conservative group and its lawyers
Ghislaine Maxwell: 2021-12-24 Horowitz - "An Acquittal Wouldn't Surprise Me": Lawyers Ask Why Just Four Epstein Accusers Were Called During Maxwell Trial
Ghislaine Maxwell: 2021-12-14 Good Morning
Link


-Lurid Crime Tales-
You MUST release on THURSDAY!
2020-10-21
[Reuters] A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered the release of a deposition that British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell gave in 2016 related to her dealings with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, and which she had fought to keep under wraps.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan directed that a transcript of Maxwell’s testimony and other documents be released by 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) on Thursday.
Related:
Ghislaine Maxwell: 2020-09-22 'Playboy' Prince Andrew 'was obsessed with redheads and slept with at least dozen beautiful women procured for him by pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein', bombshell new book claims
Ghislaine Maxwell: 2020-09-21 More Epstein fun ensues
Ghislaine Maxwell: 2020-09-17 Alan Dershowitz files $300 million defamation suit against CNN
Link


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Ghislaine Maxwell's privacy does not justify keeping deposition sealed, Epstein accuser says
2020-09-10
A woman who said she was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking told a U.S. appeals court that Ghislaine Maxwell’s desire for privacy failed to justify the continued sealing of a deposition that the British socialite has fought to keep out of the public eye.Lawyers for Virginia Giuffre made the argument in a Wednesday filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ahead of Sept. 22 oral arguments over the release of materials from her now-settled defamation lawsuit against Maxwell.

Many documents from that case were unsealed in July, and Maxwell is appealing U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska’s order to release other materials, including her April 2016 deposition and a deposition by a second Epstein accuser.

"Maxwell’s vague argument about privacy interests cannot justify total closure of the deposition materials," and overcome "the public’s presumption of access," Giuffre’s lawyers Sigrid McCawley and David Boies told the Manhattan-based appeals court.

Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997 and to committing perjury by denying her involvement with the late financier under oath.

Her trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein killed himself at age 66 in August 2019 at a federal jail in Manhattan while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell has said her deposition contained "intimate, sensitive, and personal information," and whose release would cause irreversible, negative publicity.

She said this would undermine her constitutional rights to remain silent and obtain a fair trial by an impartial jury, outweighing any presumption of public access.

But lawyers for Giuffre, who has said Epstein kept her as a "sex slave" with Maxwell’s assistance, said Maxwell did not meet the high legal hurdle of showing Preska abused her discretion.

The lawyers said an unsealing would not compel Maxwell to make self-incriminating statements, saying that she "was deposed twice in 2016, and twice at that time failed to invoke her right to remain silent."

They also said there was no basis to credit Maxwell’s "speculative" fear of unfair pretrial publicity and a tainted jury pool, especially in large metropolitan areas such as New York.

"The size and heterogeneity of such communities make it unlikely that even the most sensational case will become ’a cause celebre’ where the whole community becomes interested in all the morbid details," Giuffre’s lawyers said, quoting a decision from another federal appeals court.

The Miami Herald also wants Maxwell’s deposition unsealed.
Link


Home Front: WoT
U.S.-Iranian man gets 25 years prison for trying to buy missiles for Iran
2018-03-15
[Rooters] A dual citizen of Iran and the United States was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty of trying to buy surface-to-air missiles and aircraft components for the government of Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

Reza Olangian, 57, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan. The sentence is the minimum allowed under federal law.

Prosecutors had asked the judge to impose a sentence that was longer than the minimum, although short of the life sentence suggested by federal guidelines. Preska said she did not believe a longer sentence was necessary.

"I think Judge Preska saw that 25 years is an extraordinarily long time and that Mr. Olangian did not rise to the level of something as egregious as that," Gregory Morvillo, Olangian’s lawyer, said after the sentencing.

Olangian was convicted by a jury in November 2016 of crimes that included conspiring to acquire and transfer anti-aircraft missiles.

His lawyers have said in court filings that Olangian will appeal his conviction. At his trial, they said Olangian was an opponent of the government of Iran, and that his efforts to broker weapons sales were actually meant as a sting operation to expose Iran’s efforts to evade U.S. sanctions.

Olangian was born in Iran, came to the United States as a student in 1979, became a U.S. citizen in 1999 and moved back to Iran in 2004, according to court filings.

He was placed in durance vile
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
 in Estonia in October 2012 and extradited to the United States following a sting operation orchestrated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Prosecutors said that in 2012, Olangian met in Ukraine with a DEA informant posing as a Russian weapons broker to arrange for the purchase of surface-to-air missiles and various military aircraft components.

Prosecutors said Olangian negotiated a deal involving 10 missiles and dozens of aircraft parts, and stated during a video conference with the informant that he ultimately wanted to acquire at least 200 missiles. They said he aimed to make a substantial profit selling the weapons.
Link


Home Front: WoT
Court sentences al Qaeda supporter to 25 years
2007-11-29
A Florida-based doctor convicted of supporting al-Qaeda for swearing allegiance to Osama bin Laden and agreeing to help treat wounded fighters was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Wednesday Rafiq Sabir, 52, was found guilty by a federal jury of two terrorism charges based on an oath he and his friend Tarik Shah made in Arabic in May 2005 to an undercover FBI agent posing as an al Qaeda recruiter. He taped both men pledging support to the militant Islamic group and "Sheikh Osama."

Sabir, a strict Muslim raised in New York, pleaded innocent and said he had been misled by Shah, a martial arts expert and jazz musician. "I had no clue I was being asked to treat al Qaeda members," Sabir said in pleading for leniency to U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, repeating his trial testimony that he did not understand the pledge because his Arabic was poor. "I am an extremely gullible man who made some foolish mistakes in my life," he said.

But the judge said evidence showed Sabir had a good understanding of Arabic and clearly understood the pledge. "Terrorists cannot succeed without the treatment of their wounded," she said, adding Sabir's situation was worse because he failed to show any remorse. "He has deeply held views regarding militant fundamentalist Islam."

Shah and two other men also charged in the case pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. Earlier this month Shah was sentenced to 15 years in prison for agreeing to help train al Qaeda fighters in hand-to-hand combat.
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