December 6, 2021
By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A second woman who has accused Ghislaine Maxwell of grooming her for abuse by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein while she was a teen took the witness stand in the British socialite’s sex abuse trial on Monday.
The woman, who is testifying under the pseudonym Kate, is the second of four women named in a 2021 indictment against Maxwell. The trial, which began last week, is set to last through January.
Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of sex trafficking and other charges. Her lawyers have said the memories of the four women have been corrupted over the years, and say Maxwell is only being prosecuted because Epstein is no longer alive.
The globetrotting investor killed himself in 2019 at the age of 66 in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
Last week, jurors heard from a woman known by the pseudonym Jane who testified that Epstein sexually abused her beginning in 1994 while she was 14. Maxwell sometimes participated in their encounters, which often began as massages before escalating, Jane said.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Grant McCool and Mark Porter)
