Ghislaine Maxwell is so desperate to be released from jail in time for Christmas, she is prepared to fork out millions and halt her reported plans to divorce her husband.
Maxwell, who allegedly recruited girls for billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, submitted a £21-million (about R415m) bail package to a court in New York last week.
The package would involve her staying under armed watch in a New York apartment and offering up her passports, Mail Online reports.
Her plea to be released on bail is being driven by her husband, US tech entrepreneur Scott Borgerson, whom she secretly married in 2016.
The couple kept their union under wraps until last week, when in her application for bail she mentioned Borgerson as her strongest tie to the US and the chief reason she wouldn’t flee to the UK.
Maxwell (58) and Borgerson (44) have pledged £17m (R336m) of their own property and assets and a further £3,7m (R73m) would be raised by family and friends.
The British
socialite is accused of perjury and grooming three girls, aged 18 and under, to
be sexually abused by herself and Epstein between 1994 and 1997. She has been
in jail since July.
Prosecutors aren’t keen on granting Maxwell bail. They say her and Borgerson’s image of a loving marriage is fake as Maxwell claimed she was in the process of divorcing her husband in July.
Prosecutors believe Maxwell doesn’t have attachments to the US and want her bail application to be denied, ABC News reports.
Brian Basham, a British PR executive who is heading the campaign for her release on bail, has denied her marriage is on the rocks. “They are a devoted and mutually supportive couple.
“All will become clear in due course as the court processes grind through. There is no question of them divorcing.”
Borgerson even
filed a letter to the court, describing his wife as a “wonderful and loving
person”.
But prosecutors insist his letter carries “little weight” as he should have come to her defence during her first bail application in July.
If found guilty, Maxwell could spend more than 35 years in jail.
The British socialite denies all charges against her.
SOURCES: ABC News, Mirror Online, Mail Online
