By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal trial in Manhattan federal court was scheduled to resume on Friday, after proceedings were adjourned on Thursday because one lawyer in the case fell ill.
The adjournment followed emotional testimony earlier in the week from two women who said they were teenagers when Maxwell set them up for abuse by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and other crimes for allegedly recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein.
Here are five key moments from this week’s testimony:
– Kate, 44, recalled being 17 when she met Maxwell, who struck her as “everything that I wanted to be.” She said Maxwell encouraged her to give Epstein massages, which Kate said escalated into sexual activity. After one encounter, Kate said Maxwell told her she was a “good girl.”
“I always felt like she was talking like she was younger than me, which was odd,” Kate said.
Kate added that Maxwell told her Epstein needed to have sex three times a day. “Everything was fun and everything was silly.”
– Without the jury present, Maxwell lawyer Laura Menninger said prosecutors had told her that Jane – a woman who testified last week that Maxwell groomed her for abuse – called her brother and told him about what she said.
Menninger, who had cross-examined Jane, said Jane had told her brother that Menninger was “an expletive that rhymes with front.” Maxwell’s lawyers have aggressively questioned the credibility of their client’s accusers.
Prosecutors scrapped their plan to call Jane’s brother to the witness stand.
– Prosecutors showed jurors more than a dozen photographs to illustrate the intimacy of the relationship between Maxwell and Epstein in the 1990s. Two of them showed Maxwell rubbing Epstein’s bare foot while it pressed against her chest.
– Carolyn, now in her mid-30s, testified that Maxwell fondled her in 2002 and said she had “a good body for Mr. Epstein and his friends.” Carolyn said she told Maxwell about her troubled childhood, including being molested by her grandfather when she was 4, and disclosed to Maxwell that she was 14.
“Money will not ever fix what that woman has done to me,” Carolyn said, sobbing.
– Shawn, a man who dated Carolyn when they were teenagers in Florida, testified that he drove Carolyn and other girls to Epstein’s house to give Epstein massages. He said she would be paid in $100 bills for the massages.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney)
