Ghislaine Maxwell Claims Planned Divorce With Secret Husband Was To “Protect Him”

Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense team has been pushing for Judge Alison Nathan to accept a bail agreement that would allow her to be freed from prison until her trial. 

Maxwell’s bail application said she “vehemently maintains her innocence” against allegations she assisted Jeffrey Epstein in his crimes against women and children.

Maxwell’s defense team was hoping to keep the details of the bond’s co-signers private, due to fears that they would be harassed by members of the public.

“They are legitimately afraid if their identities become public, they will be subjected to the same relentless media scrutiny and threats that Ms. Maxwell has experienced for more than a year,” Maxwell’s attorney’s argued in a bail request.

However, it was ultimately revealed that her husband, who was putting up much of the money, is tech CEO Scott Borgerson.

While it was suspected that she and Borgerson were married, she refused to reveal his name at an initial bail hearing this summer. An additional $5 million for the bail will come from Ghislaine’s brothers, Kevin, and Ian Maxwell.

Furthermore, it was recently revealed that Maxwell was planning on divorcing her husband before her arrest.

However, in her latest bail argument, Maxwell claimed that she was only considering divorce as an option “to protect him … from the terrible consequences of being associated with her.”

According to the Guardian, her lawyers argued that “For Ms. Maxwell to flee, she would have to abandon her spouse. In fact, every action Ms. Maxwell has taken from the time of Epstein’s arrest up to the time of the first bail hearing was designed to protect her spouse from harassment, economic harm and physical danger.”

“In the weeks following the initial bail hearing, she and her spouse therefore had no reason to continue discussing divorce, which neither of them wanted in the first place,” they added.

Prosecutors maintain that Maxwell is still a flight risk, and suggested that, “the defendant’s inconsistent statements about the state of their relationship – undermine her assertion that her marriage is a tie that would keep her in the United States.”

In a filing with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors said Maxwell has essentially rehashed previously rejected arguments for bail, and that she remains an “extreme flight risk” from “incredibly serious” charges, Reuters reported on Friday.

“Nothing in the renewed bail application alters the analysis that led this court to conclude that the defendant ‘poses a substantial actual risk of flight,’ and that no combination of conditions could assure her appearance,” prosecutors said in their ruling.

If her release is granted, Maxwell has promised to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet until her trial. Her defense team was hoping that she would be released by Christmas, but that no longer appears to be possible. 

Maxwell faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted at her scheduled July 2021 trial.