I don't think there is any evidence of Planigale minimising anything. Perhaps she and I just see the bigger picture? That in between Maxwell being the height of depravity, stalking young teenage girls and grooming them, sex trafficking them, using and abusing them or alternatively is a pure as the driven snow, perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between?
See the bigger picture? Bwhahahaha! So adorable!!
You don't know, she might have been a victim of Epstein, too.
Aha, I wondered when you would play the
"victim card". If she really was a victim, that would be her first defence.... has she claimed she was a victim?
The multiple victims are now women in their mid-thirties and forties.
So?
Apart from one, who did go to the police at the time and was shamefully fobbed off, they are only coming out now that Epstein's notoriety has been exposed.
Oh, please, give me a ******* break!! The vast majority of rapes are never reported to law enforcement, and these girls were under the complete control of Epstein and his enforcer, Maxwell? They are just going to walk up the the first cop they see and make a rape complaint? Sure, sure....
Has it even occurred to you in your
"big picture" that they might only be coming out now because it has only been published recently (as in the last couple of years) that, not only was Epstein given a sweetheart deal by Acosta, but that they were kept in the dark about it, and not consulted as required by law under Federal Rules of Procedure.
Giuffre managed to keep a copy of a polaroid picture of her and Prince Andrew. She knew this was her golden ticket to bring him down.
And?
The relationship between a sex worker and his or her client is a transactional one. The client pays, the sex worker performs a service. It is a contract. Inherent in this underworld of sexual marketing is the unspoken rule that a sex worker is discreet and the client's identity remains confidential. It is well known that seasoned sex workers have blackmailed high-profile clients. It could be that in this case, Maxwell did force Giuffre onto the plane to London to liaise with Prince Andrew as a 'sex slave' and she had no choice whether out of fear or because of 'grooming'. You would like the case to be 'evil sex traffickers trafficked young girls for the gratification of unknown seedy men and vritually imprisoned and forced to work, like slave labour. With Maxwell and Epstein's illustrious 'guests' including Mick Jagger, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawkings, some of these sex workers might have found the life style glamourous. Not all sex workers have been forced into it.
Whatever other women and sex workers may or may not have done absolutely has no relevance here. What happened to THESE women and girls is at hand. The accusers claim they were coerced into it.
If, as Planigale states, they were only civil charges, then avoiding having papers served is not unusual. The onus is on the claimant to get the papers served.
Irrelevant.
While you are not required by law to sit still for papers to be served, if you actively try to avoid being served papers, even going to the extent of leaving the country to evade the process server, you are creating a track record of fleeing the country to avoid the legal process. Those actions can be used later as evidence of the risk of flight... and that is exactly what happened to Maxwell - the track record she created for herself has come back and bitten her in the arse.
She saw for herself the furore surrounding her ex-boyfriend and the screaming headlines baying for her blood. Why would she turn herself in. As we know she is an arrogant individual who thinks she is untouchable. It is no surprise she went into hiding. It is not proof of guilt.
That may be your take, my take differs...
She saw for herself the furore surrounding her ex-boyfriend and the screaming headlines baying for her blood. She knew what she had done, she knew the legal jeopardy she was in and she knew there were witnesses who would testify against her. It is no surprise she went into hiding, criminals avoiding the law often do.
It is not proof of guilt.
"Flight of the accused, after a crime has been committed, does not create a presumption of guilt. It is, however, a circumstance which may tend to prove consciousness of guilt, and should be considered and weighed by the jury in connection with all the other evidence. The weight to be given evidence of flight depends upon the motives which prompted it, and all of the surrounding facts and circumstances"
- United States v. Jackson, 572 F.2d 636, 639 n.4 (7th Cir. 1978)
Fleeing and hiding from the Law evinces the guilty mind!
People are entitled to keep their bank accounts confidential. It has always been the way. Your assets can only be frozen under a court order and to do that you have to show probable cause they are the 'proceeds of crime' or money laundering.
There is a big difference between keeping your bank accounts confidential, and actively hiding them using false names on the accounts. If a defendant has been shown to go to such extremes to hide their finances, the prosecutors are entitled to think they have nefarious reasons for doing so.
You try hiding your bank accounts from HM Revenue & Customs, and see what it gets you (and don't get caught)
FACT: Her mother is a French national (possibly a resident). She was born and brought up in the UK. She was educated at Oxford. She is a British citizen. She has US nationality via naturalisation, having lived there a long time. Nothing suspicious about that.
Sure its not suspicious. I hold a NZ passport (naturalised citizen) and a British passport (my Dad was English, I was was born there), and I am entitled to hold a Swiss Passport as well (my mother was Swiss).
However, the fact that it is not suspicious does not prevent her from using it to her advantage. It allows her to disappear into a country that WILL NOT extradite her to the US for trial.
She might be a flight risk. However, it should be easy enough to provide her with proper hygienic conditions during her remand period before trial. They should not be shining lights in her face every fifteen minutes while she is trying to sleep. She should not have to put up with 24-hour fluorescent lighting, with no natural daylight (imagine being in a 9ft cell with no windows...), guards standing over her on the toilet, confiscating legal privileged documents, filming her with her lawyers, etc., etc. rats, sewage leaking over the floor.
If indeed any of that is really happening. We only have her word for any of that. The prison officials, the prosecutors and it seems, the other prisoners in the prison say different. They say she is getting preferential treatment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...w-it-treats-jailed-ghislaine-maxwell-n1250299
She is served three normal meals a day and keeps her weight around 134 pounds.
She has access to recreation
She has access to computers and Television
She has much of the day to herself (can work on her defense)
She is allowed eight hours a month for social calls (and uses all of it)
As for your other claims...
Your claim: "They should not be shining lights in her face every fifteen minutes while she is trying to sleep"
The Facts: All prisoners are subject to this; Brooklyn jail officials check all cells overnight with flashlights
"to ensure inmates are still breathing and not in distress."
Your claim: "She should not have to put up with 24-hour fluorescent lighting, with no natural daylight"
The Facts: Some of her recreation time is outside. She gets three hours per day in the exercise yard (most other prisoners only get two hours)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/we...g-treated-in-jail/Y2P2TEYHADBMNS6U4NB6GVODB4/
Your claim: guards standing over her on the toilet
The Facts: This claim has no basis in fact. It is simply untrue, it never happened.
Your claim: confiscating legal privileged documents,
The Facts: Another factually false claim. Prisoners are not allowed to receive and retain any documents from their lawyers. They may read and discus documents with their lawyers, but that is all. Prisoners are not allowed to leave the legal rooms with anything they didn't walk in with. The documents in question were legally seized and returned to her lawyer.
Your claim: filming her with her lawyers
The Facts: It is routine prisoners to be filmed in the legal rooms, but there is no audio, and the cameras are nowhere near high enough resolution to see what is written any documents. She is being held on the second floor of the women's block where the medical facilities, legal visiting rooms and guard areas are. She is the only prisoner on that floor.
Your claim: rats, sewage leaking over the floor.
The Facts: MDC staff directed the defendant to clean her cell because it had become very dirty. Among other things, they noted that Maxwell frequently did not flush her toilet after using it, which caused the cell to smell...
https://metro.co.uk/2021/04/07/ghis...-in-jail-as-doesnt-flush-the-toilet-14369374/
This one is hardly surprising to me.... with the privileged lifestyle she was used to
"cleaning" is not something she would ever have done. I doubt she has ever handled a mop and bucket in her entire life... that would be a job for servants and menials.
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