The decide has steered that closing arguments may happen as early as Dec. 20 if the protection presentation subsequent week solely lasts a day or two.
NEW YORK — Prosecutors accomplished presenting their case in opposition to Ghislaine Maxwell on Friday, after a key accuser on the British socialite’s sex-abuse trial testified that Maxwell and her companion, Jeffrey Epstein, pressured themselves on her when she was simply 16.
Annie Farmer instructed jurors she accepted an invite to the financier’s sprawling New Mexico ranch in 1996 hoping that Maxwell and Epstein would assist her with tutorial endeavors. As a substitute, she mentioned, Maxwell ended up massaging her breasts and Epstein climbed into mattress with out her permission.
Three others have asserted on the trial that started two weeks in the past that Maxwell recruited them to provide Epstein massages meant as a ruse for sexual abuse.
Maxwell, 59, has denied costs she groomed underage ladies for Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019. Her attorneys say the federal government is making her a scapegoat for alleged intercourse crimes dedicated by her onetime boyfriend and moved instantly for a judgment of acquittal after prosecutors rested Friday afternoon.
The decide instructed the jury they are going to return Thursday to listen to the protection case. The decide has steered that closing arguments — at a trial initially projected to final six weeks — may happen as early as Dec. 20 if the protection presentation subsequent week solely lasts a day or two.
In her testimony, Farmer recalled the undesirable bodily contact making her really feel like she “simply needed the weekend to be over. … I needed to be accomplished with it.”
She added: “All these experiences made me really feel like they’d a really totally different curiosity in me.”
Requested by a prosecutor in the beginning of her testimony if she noticed anybody within the courtroom who had ever given her a therapeutic massage, Farmer recognized Maxwell, who was sitting on the protection desk Farmer.
Farmer, now 42, took the stand utilizing her true id — a departure from the choice by three different accusers with related tales who testified beneath pseudonyms or first names solely to guard their privateness.
Two of the others who testified mentioned they have been simply 14 when the abuse began and that Maxwell generally participated within the encounters.
Farmer testified that she met Epstein at age 16 on a 1996 journey to New York Metropolis to go to her older sister, who was working for him at his Manhattan mansion. Once they visited him on the dwelling, he “appeared very pleasant and right down to earth,” and even provided to mentor her, she mentioned.
She mentioned that in an outing to the films with Epstein, he reached over to carry her hand and caress her leg.
“I felt sick to my abdomen,” she mentioned. “It was not one thing I used to be anticipating in any respect.”
When Farmer returned dwelling, she stayed in contact with the rich financier and accepted an invite to journey to New Mexico with a aircraft ticket he paid for regardless that, she mentioned, “after what occurred within the movie show, I didn’t wish to be alone with him.”
She mentioned she initially felt extra comfy as a result of Maxwell was there. However after they took her to the films, he “straight away started to carry my hand” and rub her foot and arm all through the movie with no effort to cover the conduct from Maxwell, she mentioned.
As soon as dwelling, Maxwell insisted on giving Farmer a therapeutic massage and instructed her to take off her garments, Farmer testified. Maxwell “pulled down the sheet and uncovered my breasts and beginning rubbing on my breasts,” Farmer mentioned.
“It didn’t make sense to me that may occur,” she mentioned. “I so badly needed to get off the desk and have the therapeutic massage be accomplished.”
Farmer accepted $1.5 million from a fund set as much as compensate Epstein victims, she testified.
The encounters occurred in New Mexico, which didn’t have a particular age of consent statute, though its legal guidelines criminalized all sexual contact of a minor beneath the age of 13 when coercion or power is concerned.
On cross examination, a protection lawyer repeatedly emphasised via her questions that Maxwell was not concerned in probably the most egregious conduct described by Farmer and elicited that Farmer was undecided she was bare throughout her therapeutic massage, though she was sure that her breasts have been uncovered.
The Related Press doesn’t determine individuals who say they have been victims of sexual abuse except they arrive ahead publicly. Though Farmer was not recognized by identify in court docket paperwork, the training psychologist has been outspoken in describing her experiences in interviews with ABC and The New York Instances.
Maxwell has been jailed since she was arrested in New Hampshire in July 2020. When she sought bail, Farmer requested the decide to disclaim it, calling her a “psychopath.”
