Ghislaine Maxwell has spoken from behind bars to describe how she has been plagued by rats and “creepy” guards ahead of her upcoming trial.
The former socialite will appear before a federal court later this month in New York, where she has pleaded not guilty to procuring underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse.
It is expected to be one of the most closely followed criminal cases of the century and has already set in motion pre-trial efforts by Ms Maxwell’s team to shape public perception.
As well as an interview setting out her foetid existence in a US jail, Ms Maxwell is believed to have dyed her hair to conceal grey streaks, while her family have commissioned their own court artist to draw her in a flattering light.
This weekend, the 59-year-old described spending her days surrounded by vermin and under the constant gaze of prison guards.
“I used to go to the loo with an open sewer drain and a friendly rat would regularly visit,” she said in an interview to be published by the Mail On Sunday.
“I told the guards but nothing was done until the rat popped out and charged a guard who screamed in terror.”
Ms Maxwell claimed she had stopped taking showers because “creepy guards stand close and stare at me the whole time,” and that she suffered “inhumane” solitary confinement.
Lawyers for Ms Maxwell have previously claimed she endured jail conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn that are comparable to those imposed on Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs.
Jury selection has begun ahead of a trial which is due to begin on Nov 29.
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail in August 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Ms Maxwell, 59, has pleaded not guilty to allegations that she conspired with and aided Epstein’s abuse of minor girls between 1994 and 2004.
This week her defence team gave an insight into their legal strategy for the case.
Ms Maxwell appears to have undergone a pretrial makeover, which experts said was not uncommon for defendants in jury trials. At a hearing this week, her hair was no longer lank and greying, but full and dark.
