The 8th day of the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell on charges of sex trafficking of minors began over an hour late on Wednesday owing to a juror who had what Judge Alison Nathan called “substantial train issues.” Welcome to New York. Things stayed disjointed throughout the morning and afternoon.
The big news from Tuesday night was that the prosecution will rest this week, either on Thursday or Friday — this is at least a week earlier than was expected, and the government has decided not to call many witnesses originally on their list. Most of Wednesday was taken up with loose ends prior to the testimony of Annie Farmer, the final accuser to take the stand, scheduled now for Thursday.
The first witness of the day was Janine Gill, head of human resources at Mar-a-Lago. Her brief testimony amounted to her verifying that Sky Roberts, the father of Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts, was an employee at Mar-a-Lago in the early 2000s. This helped to corroborate previous testimony that Virginia Roberts had been at the Trump resort with Maxwell.
The most riveting witness of the day, entertaining if not terribly important, was Shawn, using only his first name; he is the former boyfriend of Carolyn, who took the stand on Tuesday to detail Epstein and Maxwell’s alleged abuse of her in 2002 when she was a mere 14 years old.
Shawn described a typical teenage group of friends — himself, Carolyn, Virginia Roberts, and her boyfriend — saying that back then they would mostly “drive around and smoke pot.”
He claimed that Roberts had told Carolyn at the time “that she could come out and give a massage and leave with a couple hundred dollars.” This matched up exactly with Carolyn’s statements on Tuesday.
Shawn said that he drove Carolyn to Epstein’s Palm Beach estate about twice a week in 2002. He also admitted that he was simultaneously dating a 15- or 16-year-old named Amanda and a 16-year-old named Melissa who he would also drive to Epstein’s.
He confirmed many details of Carolyn’s account, including that the pay was always in hundred dollar bills, something he claimed he remembered because they would stop at a gas station on Palm Beach island to break the bills because “they don’t accept hundreds in West Palm Beach.”
While he remembered Carolyn talking about Maxwell in the early 2000s, he had no interactions or personal knowledge regarding the defendant.
Most of the day was taken up by witness David Rodgers, a pilot who flew Epstein’s private planes from 1991 to 2019. High drama this was not. U.S. Attorney Maureen Comey took Rodgers through almost 40 records from his personal flight logs. In most of these instances, Maxwell and Epstein were both passengers, and in many, so was Virginia Roberts, who not only claims to have been abused by Epstein, but to have procured young girls for him.
On cross-examination, the defense parried with a number of flights that Maxwell was not on, pointing out that in 30 years, Rodgers had flown well over 1,000 times for Epstein. Rodgers also testified that he never saw a girl who appeared under 18 without her parents on the plane during his long tenure.
Whether the prosecution rests Thursday or Friday, Judge Nathan ruled that the defense will not have to open its case until late next week, the court had already been scheduled to be off from Monday through Wednesday. The abbreviated case from the government came as a surprise and may be a signal that they believe they have already proved their case.
The defense of Maxwell is still a bit of a mystery. So far, in dealing with the government’s witnesses, they seem to be making an argument in the alternative. First, attacking the credibility of the witnesses, but alternatively saying, even if they are telling the truth, it was Epstein, not Maxwell who was responsible for the abuse.
For now, there is one more accuser left to testify, and then it will be up to the defense to mount whatever case they can muster.