JAKARTA - Ghislaine Maxwell has been placed in a cell under strict surveillance to prevent suicide in a Brooklyn prison.
The 60-year-old British socialite is seeking a delay in her sentence on Tuesday on charges of aiding Jeffrey Epstein's sexual harassment of underage girls.
In a letter to the judge handling Maxwell's case, Maxwell's attorney Bobbi Sternheim said his client was "unprepared for sentencing," after officials at the Metropolitan Detention Center announced surveillance of a suicide attempt and abruptly transferred Maxwell to solitary confinement.
Sternheim said Maxwell was given a 'suicide suit,' his clothes, toothpaste, soap and legal papers were taken.
The lawyer also said Maxwell "did not attempt suicide," a conclusion he quoted from a psychologist who evaluated the 60-year-old British socialite.
"If Maxwell remains under suicide surveillance, is barred from reviewing legal material prior to sentencing, becomes sleep deprived, and is not given sufficient time to meet and confer with legal counsel, then we will formally request a suspension on Monday," Sternheim said in the letter. he sent as reported by Reuters via Antara, Sunday, June 26.
A spokesman for US Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan, who is suing Maxwell, declined to comment. Epstein, 66, committed suicide in August 2019 in a Manhattan prison cell, where the businessman is awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell was sentenced December 29 on five criminal charges, including sex trafficking, for recruiting and exploiting four underage girls for Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
Prosecutors said Maxwell could spend at least 30 years in a prison cell, citing "no remorse." Maxwell wanted a timeframe shorter than 20 years.
The sentence will be handed down by US Circuit Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan federal court. Maxwell was held in a Brooklyn prison shortly after his arrest in July 2020.
His lawyers had raised objections several times before trial about the conditions of the prison cells there, including last November when Sternheim likened him to Hannibal Lecter from the 1991 Oscar-winning film "The Silence of the Lambs."
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