Ghislaine Maxwell Case: Legal Team To Challenge Accusers' Memory
The legal team for British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell will argue against claims she groomed underage girls for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse and will offer expert testimony that calls into question her accusers’ memory.
A letter written by Maxwell’s attorney Jeffrey Pagliuca provided an overview of the defense in the court case, which begins on Nov. 29. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys are planning to call Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist specializing in false memory. Loftus has testified for defendants such as O.J. Simpson and Harvey Weinstein.
"She will describe scientific research showing that false memories can be described with confidence, detail, and emotion, just like true memories," the letter reads. Loftus' research exhibits how memories can be altered by things we are told and information we take in after certain incidents, according to her profile at the UCI School of Social Ecology.
The letter said also said that Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist who has also been consulted in various high-profile criminal cases, would testify that the proposal that Maxwell is guilty of “grooming-by-proxy” by enlisting underage girls to give sexualized massages to Epstein was not substantiated scientifically.
Maxwell, 59, was indicted for helping recruit four underage girls for Epstein to abuse from 1994 to 2004, as well as sex trafficking.
Epstein, a wealthy businessman with many prominent associates, died in a New York prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Medical examiners classified his death as suicide.
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