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Public release of Epstein records puts Maxwell under fresh scrutiny
Court Watch |
2025/12/22 07:19
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Days after Ghislaine Maxwell asked a judge to immediately free her from a 20-year prison sentence, the public release of grand jury transcripts from her sex trafficking case returned the spotlight to victims whose allegations helped land her behind bars.
The disclosure of the transcripts as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing release of its investigative files on Maxwell and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein exposed how an FBI agent told grand jurors about Maxwell’s critical role in Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse of girls and young women.
Maxwell, a British socialite and publishing heir, was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 after four women told a federal jury in New York City about how she and Epstein abused them in the 1990s and early 2000s. Epstein never went to trial. He was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges and killed himself a month later in his cell at a Manhattan federal jail.
Two weeks ago, as the Justice Department prepared to begin releasing what are commonly known as the Epstein files, Maxwell filed a habeas petition, asking a federal judge to free her on grounds that “substantial new evidence” has emerged proving that constitutional violations spoiled her trial.
Maxwell claimed exonerating information was withheld and that witnesses lied in their testimony. She filed the petition on her own, without the assistance of a lawyer.
This week, the judge, Paul A. Engelmayer, scolded Maxwell for failing to remove victim names and other identifying information from her court papers. He said future filings must be kept sealed and out of public view until they have been reviewed and redacted to protect victims’ identities.
Victims fear Maxwell will be pardoned
Epstein accuser Danielle Bensky said the release of records has only sharpened the focus on Maxwell’s crimes among their victims. Bensky said she’s been involved in daily discussions with about two dozen other victims that make clear Maxwell “is a criminal who was 1,000% engaged in sexual acts.”
“I’ve heard things that would make your blood curdle. I just had a conversation with a survivor last night who said she was the puppeteer,” Bensky said.
Bensky said she was sexually abused by Epstein two decades ago. She said she was never personally abused by Maxwell.
Delayed and heavily redacted files
The transcripts of grand jury proceedings that resulted in Maxwell’s indictment were released this week in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law enacted last month after months of public and political pressure.
The Justice Department has been periodically posting records after acknowledging it would miss last Friday’s congressionally mandated deadline to release all records. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring victims’ names and other identifying information.
On Wednesday, the department said it may need a “few more weeks” to release the full trove after suddenly discovering more than a million potentially relevant documents. It was a stunning development after department officials suggested months ago that they’d already accounted for the vast universe of Epstein-related materials.
Some of the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury records were initially released with heavy redactions — A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY” — was entirely blacked out. Updated versions were posted over the weekend.
FBI agent testifies Maxwell manipulated young girl
An FBI agent’s grand jury testimony, describing interviews conducted with Epstein victims, foreshadowed trial testimony a year later from four women who described Maxwell’s role in their sexual abuse from 1994 to 2004.
The agent told of a woman who described meeting Maxwell and Epstein as a 14-year-old attending a Michigan summer arts camp in 1994. Flight logs showed Epstein and Maxwell went to the school sponsoring the camp because Epstein was a donor.
According to the agent, whose name was redacted from the transcript, the girl had a chance encounter with Epstein and Maxwell one day. After learning that the girl was from Palm Beach, Florida, Epstein mentioned that he sometimes gave scholarships to students and they requested her phone number, the agent said.
Once home, the girl visited Epstein’s estate with her mother for tea and the mother was impressed when Epstein said he provided scholarships, enough so that the mother said Epstein was like a “godfather,” the agent said.
The agent said the girl began regularly going to the estate as Epstein and Maxwell “groomed” her with gifts and trips to the movies, and Epstein began paying for voice lessons and giving her money that he said she should give to her struggling mother.
The agent said the girl thought her relationship with Epstein and Maxwell was strange, “but Maxwell normalized it for her. She was like a cool, older sister and made comments like, ‘This is what grownups do.’”
Eventually, the agent testified, the girl saw Maxwell topless at the pool. After she revealed that she hoped to be an actor and a model, Epstein told her he was best friends with the owner of Victoria’s Secret and that she’ll have to learn to be comfortable in her underwear and not be a prude, the agent said.
Then, the agent said, the girl asked Epstein what he meant by that and the financier pulled her into his lap and masturbated. After that, the agent added, the girl’s encounters with Epstein began to include sexual contact, particularly in his massage room.
Maxwell was sometimes there with other girls, the agent said. One of the girls would begin massaging Epstein and Maxwell would tease the girls, the agent said.
“She’d grab the girl’s breasts, and she would direct the girls on what to do,” the agent said, relaying the girl’s account. Maxwell’s attitude during the encounters was ”very casual; she acted like this was normal,” the agent said.
The released testimony appeared to reflect the testimony at Maxwell’s 2021 trial by a woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane.”
At trial, Jane said Maxwell also participated in group sessions between multiple females and Epstein that usually began with Epstein or Maxwell leading them all into a bedroom or a massage room at the Palm Beach residence.
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Top EU official warns the US against interfering in Europe’s affairs
Court Watch |
2025/12/07 22:10
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A top European Union official on Monday warned the United States against interfering in Europe’s affairs and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them.
European Council President Antonio Costa’s remarks came in reaction to the Trump administration’s new national security strategy, which was published on Friday and paints European allies as weak while offering tacit support to far-right political parties.
It’s “good” that the strategy depicts European countries as an ally, but “allies don’t threaten to interfere in the domestic political choices of their allies,” Costa said.
“What we can’t accept is the threat of interference in European political life. The United States cannot replace European citizens in choosing what the good or the bad parties are,” he said in Paris at the Jacques Delors Institute, a think tank.
Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive at the European Policy Centre think tank, said that stridently nationalist parties in Europe will be emboldened by the strategy document and “will intensify efforts to hollow out the EU from within.”
“Pro-European liberal forces need to finally wake up: Trump’s America is not an ally but an adversary to Europe’s freedoms and fundamental values. His objective is to replace our democratic system with the illiberal populism now entrenched in the U.S.,” Zuleeg said.
The strategy was also critical of European free speech and migration policy. U.S. allies in Europe face the “prospect of civilizational erasure,” the document said, raising doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners.
But Costa, who chairs summits of the 27 national EU leaders, said Europe’s “history has taught us that you can’t have freedom of speech without freedom of information.”
The former Portuguese prime minister also warned “there will never be free speech if the freedom of information of citizens is sacrificed for the aims of the tech oligarchs in the United States.”
Speaking to reporters in Berlin, German government spokesperson Sebastian Hille underlined that “Europe and the U.S. are historically, economically and culturally linked, and remain close partners.”
“But we reject the partly critical tones against the EU,” he said. “Political freedoms, including the right to freedom of expression, belong to the fundamental values of the European Union. We view accusations regarding this more as ideology than strategy.”
The security strategy is the administration’s first since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. It breaks starkly from the course set by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which sought to reinvigorate U.S. alliances.
It comes as the U.S. seeks an end to Russia’s nearly 4-year-old war in Ukraine, a goal that the national security strategy says is in America’s vital interests.
But the text makes clear that the U.S. wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and ending the war is a core U.S. interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the document “absolutely corresponds to our vision.” Over the course of the war, Russia has worked to drive a wedge between NATO allies, particularly between the U.S. and Ukraine’s main backers in Europe.
“If we read closely the part about Ukraine, we can understand why Moscow shares this vision,” Costa said. “The objective in this strategy is not a fair and durable peace. It’s only (about) the end of hostilities, and the stability of relations with Russia.”
“Everyone wants stable relations with Russia,” he added, but “we can’t have stable relations with Russia when Russia remains a threat to our security.”
Top EU officials and intelligence officers have warned Russia could be in a position to launch an attack elsewhere in Europe in three to five years should it defeat Ukraine. |
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Former Honduras President Hernández freed after Trump pardon
Court Watch |
2025/12/03 06:30
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Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for his role in helping drug traffickers move hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States, was released from prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump, his wife announced Tuesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate website showed that Hernández was released from U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in West Virginia on Monday and a spokesperson for the bureau on Tuesday confirmed his release.
His wife Ana García thanked Trump for pardoning Hernández via the social platform X early Tuesday.
“After almost four years of pain, of waiting and difficult challenges, my husband Juan Orlando Hernández RETURNED to being a free man, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump,” García’s post said. She included a picture of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons listing for Hernández indicating his release.
On Sunday, Trump was asked about why he pardoned Hernandez by reporters traveling with him on Air Force One.
“I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras,” Trump said.
“The people of Honduras really thought he was set up, and it was a terrible thing,” he said.
“They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a Biden administration set-up. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.”
Hernández was arrested at the request of the United States in February 2022, weeks after handing over power to current President Xiomara Castro.
Two years later, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in a New York federal courtroom for taking bribes from drug traffickers so they could safely move some 400 tons of cocaine north through Honduras to the United States.
Hernández maintained throughout that he was innocent and the victim of revenge by drug traffickers he had helped extradite to the United States.
During his sentencing in New York, federal Judge P. Kevin Castel said the punishment should serve as a warning to “well educated, well dressed” individuals who gain power and think their status insulates them from justice when they do wrong.
Hernández portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement who teamed up with American authorities under three U.S. presidential administrations to reduce drug imports.
But the judge said trial evidence proved the opposite and that Hernández employed “considerable acting skills” to make it seem that he was an anti-drug trafficking crusader while he deployed his nation’s police and military, when necessary, to protect the drug trade.
Hernández is not guaranteed a quick return to Honduras.
Immediately after Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernández, Honduras Attorney General Johel Zelaya said via X that his office was obligated to seek justice and put an end to impunity.
He did not specify what charges Hernández could face in Honduras. There were various corruption-related investigations of his administration across two terms in office that did not lead to charges against him. President Xiomara Castro, who had Hernández arrested and extradited him to the U.S., will remain in office until January.
The pardon promised by Trump days before Honduras’ presidential election injected a new element into the contest that some said helped the candidate from his National Party Nasry Asfura, one of the leaders as the vote count proceeded Tuesday.
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Dominican appeals court to hear arguments on Franco’s conviction
Court Watch |
2025/11/09 05:39
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Wander Franco’s attorneys pushed to have the suspended Tampa Bay Rays shortstop’s sexual-abuse conviction and sentencing overturned Tuesday.
Franco in June was convicted of sexually abusing a minor, and he then received a two-year suspended sentence. Meanwhile, prosecutors are seeking a five-year sentence.
The court of appeals in Puerto Plata, where the case was heard, said it would issue a ruling on Dec. 9 after hearing arguments from prosecutors and Franco’s lawyers.
Franco was arrested last year after being accused of having a four-month relationship with a girl who was 14 at the time, and of transferring thousands of dollars to her mother to consent to the illegal relationship.
Franco was once Tampa Bay’s star shortstop, signing an 11-year, $182 million contract in November 2021.
Authorities in the Dominican Republic announced in August 2023 they were investigating him for an alleged relationship with a minor.
In January 2024, Franco was arrested in his home country. Six months later, Tampa Bay placed him on the restricted list.
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Kimberly-Clark buying Tylenol maker Kenvue in $48.7 billion deal
Court Watch |
2025/11/01 06:57
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Kimberly-Clark is buying Tylenol maker Kenvue in a cash and stock deal worth about $48.7 billion, creating a massive consumer health goods company.
Shareholders of Kimberly-Clark will own about 54% of the combined company. Kenvue shareholders will own about 46%.
The combined company will have a large stable of household brands under one roof, putting Kenvue’s Listerine mouthwash and Band-Aid side-by-side with Kimberly-Clark’s Cottonelle toilet paper, Huggies and Kleenex tissues. It will also generate about $32 billion in annual revenue.
Kenvue has spent a relatively brief period as an independent company, having been spun off by Johnson & Johnson two years ago. J&J first announced in late 2021 that it was splitting its consumer health division from the pharmaceutical and medical device divisions.
The deal announced Monday is among the largest corporate takeovers of the year.
Kenvue was thrust into the national spotlight last month when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reasserted the unproven link between the pain reliever Tylenol and autism, and suggested people who opposed the theory were motivated by hatred for President Donald Trump.
During a meeting with Trump and the Cabinet, Kennedy reiterated the connection, even while noting there was no medical proof to substantiate the claim.
In July Kenvue, announced that CEO Thibaut Mongon was leaving in the midst of a strategic review with the company under mounting pressure from activist investors. Board member Kirk Perry is serving as interim CEO.
“We will serve billions of consumers across every stage of life,” Kimberly-Clark Chairman and CEO Mike Hsu said in a statement.
Hsu will be chairman and CEO of the combined company. Three members of the Kenvue’s board will join Kimberly-Clark’s board at closing. The combined company will keep Kimberly-Clark’s headquarters in Irving, Texas and continue to have a significant presence in Kenvue’s locations.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year. It still needs approval from shareholders of both both companies.
Kenvue shareholders will receive $3.50 per share in cash and 0.14625 Kimberly-Clark shares for each Kenvue share held at closing. That amounts to $21.01 per share, based on the closing price of Kimberly-Clark shares on Friday.
Kimberly-Clark and Kenvue said that they identified about $1.9 billion in cost savings that are expected in the first three years after the transaction’s closing.
Shares of Kimberly-Clark slipped more than 15% before the market open, while Kenvue’s stock jumped more than 20%.
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