Ghislaine Maxwell ?preyed on vulnerable young girls?, prosecutors say

In Ghislaine Maxwell's child sex-trafficking trial, Manhattan federal prosecutors shared a simple, chilling message with jurors in their opening statement: "She knew what was going to happen to those girls."

Maxwell "preyed on vulnerable young girls, manipulated them and served them up to be sexually abused" by Jeffrey Epstein, said prosecutor Lara Pomerantz. "The defendant was trafficking kids for sex.

"Maxwell was Epstein's best friend and right hand," Pomerantz said of the late financier, who was arrested in July 2019 in relation to sexually abusing teen girls. "She was involved in every detail of Epstein's life. The defendant and Epstein were partners in crime.

"She used the same excuse over and over to get the girls to touch Epstein - massage," Pomerantz argued. "You'll learn the cover of massage was the primary way the defendant and Epstein lured girls into sexual abuse.

"The defendant massaged Epstein in front of the girls, then encouraged the girls to massage Epstein," she said. "But what was happening inside those massage rooms was not a massage - it was sexual abuse.

"Sometimes she was even in the room for the massages herself and sometimes, she touched the girls' bodies," Pomerantz continued. "And even when she was not in the room, make no mistake: she knew exactly what Epstein was going to do to those children when she sent them to him inside the massage rooms."

Maxwell, 59 and the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, has pleaded not guilty on six counts related to her alleged involvement in Epstein's abuse of minors, some as young as 14 years old.