Page 105 - Robert Maxwell News Today

Her lawyers said a fellow female inmate had threatened to strangle the former socialite in her sleep.

Her lawyers said a fellow female inmate had threatened to strangle the former socialite in her sleep.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ghislaine Maxwell should spend fewer, and perhaps far fewer, than 20 years in prison for helping deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, her lawyers said on Wednesday, arguing that Epstein was the "mastermind" behind the abuse.

One of Ghislaine Maxwell's fellow inmates "told at least three other inmates that she had been offered money to murder Ms. Maxwell and that she planned to strangle her in her sleep,” wrote defense lawyer Bobbi Sternheim.

Maxwells sentencing is due on June 28.

“Had Ghislaine Maxwell never had the profound misfortune of meeting Jeffrey Epstein over 30 years ago, she would not be here,” lawyers wrote in a court submission.

Defense lawyers added in advance of a June 28 sentencing that Ghislaine Maxwell "is not an heiress, villain, or vapid socialite" and hasn't deserved the "drumbeat of public condemnation calling for her to be locked away for good."

Her lawyers said a fellow female inmate had threatened to strangle the former socialite in her sleep.

Ghislaine Maxwell cited a traumatic childhood and vulnerability to Jeffrey Epstein in a plea for leniency two weeks before her scheduled court sentencing for child sex trafficking.

A memo to the judge who will decide her punishment says her privileged-but-sad upbringing made her vulnerable to Epstein.