How did Ghislaine Maxwell try to distance herself from Jeffrey Epstein?

Attending charity events is an excellent way to boost your public image. If you’re trying to hide your involvement in sex-trafficking crimes, be sure to be seen at anti-sex trafficking events. No one knows this better than accused sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell who attended a Stop the Trafficking of People (STOP) charity event in 2013.

Before Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on suspicion of recruiting underage victims for the infamous Jeffrey Epstein, she attended a Stop fundraiser in New York for girls fleeing sex traffickers. (Oh the irony of it all!)

Unlikely suspect

A photo of Maxwell at the 2013 STOP fundraiser recently surfaced, showing her posing with the group’s founder, Celhia de Lavarene – with nothing but smiles from Maxwell. “She’s got some nerve. But I am not surprised. I’ve come to realise that these people need to appear to be doing good and make people believe it,” de Lavarene told The Sun.

Also seen in the photo is French fashion designer Catherine Malandrino, who hosted the fundraiser at her store in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Also photographed was French ambassador Francois Delattre, who went on to become France’s Permanent Representative to the UN. At the STOP event, he gave an impassioned speech on fighting human trafficking. 

Delattre explained the purpose of the event was to raise money to create rescue centers for girls & women who escape sex traffickers, so they’re not forced back on the streets. (Maxwell donated money for a cause she was secretly making worse. We still can’t get over the irony.)

Heartless

“The French Ambassador made a speech in which he explained what my organisation has been doing for years. He asked for money for us to open a rescue centre in some countries where girls are forced and sold into prostitution. He told how they were raped and beaten,” de Lavarene described. 

Unfortunately, the powerful speech didn’t touch Ghislaine Maxwell, who continued her sex-trafficking operations as usual.

Hiding in plain sight

According to a recent review of Maxwell’s tax documents, she donated money in 2008 to a charity for sex trafficking victims, Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS), a charity created to help women in New York find a safe place to stay. 

Via GEMS’s website, their mission is to “end commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and revolutionizing the systems and policies that impact commercially sexually exploited youth.”

GEMS founder & CEO Rachel Lloyd clarified if her organization took Ghislaine Maxwell’s “gift”: “We would never knowingly accept monies from anyone who was working against [our] mission. We fully support all the victims who have been brave enough to come forward against Jeffrey Epstein and hope that they will still be able to find a measure of justice from those [who] perpetuated his crimes.”

Shameful

To hide her true identity as a sex offender, Maxwell portrayed herself as a generous woman who believed in ending sexual exploitation and helping those who’ve been abused. Little did we know what was actually going on behind closed doors. 

Ghislaine Maxwell is currently sitting behind bars for the charges of grooming young girls as young as fourteen for Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in prison last year. Maxwell denies all charges against her.