Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in a US prison for helping disgraced former financier Jeffrey Epstein abuse young girls.
Gatekeepers News reports that Judge Alison J Nathan while pronouncing the sentence said Maxwell’s conduct had been “heinous and predatory”.
“Ms Maxwell worked with Epstein to select young victims who were vulnerable and played a pivotal role in facilitating s*xual abuse,” she added.
She said the case called for a “very significant sentence” and that she wanted to send an “unmistakable message” that such crimes would be punished.
Maxwell was convicted in December of recruiting and trafficking four teenage girls for s*xual abuse by Epstein, her then boyfriend.
One of her accusers said outside the court in New York that she should stay in prison for the rest of her life.
Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019.
As well as jail time, the judge imposed a fine of $750,000 (£610,000).
Maxwell, whose lawyers had argued for a term of less than five years, looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as the sentence was passed in front of a packed public gallery.
Earlier, she apologised to her victims. She said she empathised with them and meeting Epstein was “the biggest regret” of her life.
“My association with Epstein will permanently stain me,” she said, adding that she hoped her prison sentence would allow the victims “peace and finality”.
He had been awaiting his own s*x trafficking trial.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes took place over a decade, between 1994 and 2004.
