Jurors at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial shown Epstein’s massage table, photo of sex toys

NEW YORK, Dec. 3 (Reuters) – A green massage table confiscated from Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach property was taken to a Manhattan federal courtroom on Friday where British celebrity Ghislaine Maxwell was found for her alleged role in the sexual abuse of underage girls is on trial.

Prosecutors said many of Epstein’s encounters with teenagers began as massages before they escalated, calling the term “massage” a “trick” to get girls to touch Epstein.

59-year-old Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to eight sex trafficking and other crimes cases for allegedly recruiting and caring for girls for Epstein.

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Her attorneys argue that she is being scapegoated because Epstein cannot be prosecuted after killing himself in a Manhattan prison at the age of 66 in 2019 while awaiting trial for sexual abuse. Maxwell is a former Epstein friend.

Jeffrey Parkinson, a retired police officer who was involved in the search in 2005 as part of an investigation into Epstein’s behavior, testified on the fifth day of Maxwell’s trial that he had carried the massage table out of Epstein’s property.

Prosecutor Maurene Comey also showed the jury a photo of a box labeled “Twin Torpedoes” that a Parkinson’s colleague Michael Dawson said contained sex toys from an upstairs closet.

“We were looking for massage tables, we were looking for massage oils, we were looking for sex toys, we were looking for correspondence,” Dawson said on Friday afternoon.

The demonstrations came after Epstein’s former property manager Juan Alessi made his own testimony.

Alessi testified on Thursday that Epstein was receiving about three massages every day when he quit his job in 2002.

He said he sometimes found sex toys while cleaning the massage room and kept them in Maxwell’s bathroom.

Calling Maxwell the “lady of the house” on the Palm Beach estate, Alessi said she often instructed him to schedule Epstein’s massages and that he sometimes took her on scouting missions to spas to find new therapists for Epstein.

A woman who identified herself as Jane testified this week that she frequently massaged Epstein at the Palm Beach home as a teenager in the mid-1990s.

She said Epstein often touched her sexually during their encounters, which Maxwell sometimes attended. Epstein paid her sometimes, she added.

Alessi testified that Jane’s real name was in a directory he kept of Epstein’s masseuses. He also said house staff were instructed to put several $ 100 bills in Epstein’s cars before Epstein and Maxwell got to Florida for the weekend.

Maxwell’s lawyers tried to challenge Jane’s memory of the events on Friday when they cross-examined Alessi.

They questioned his memory of meeting Jane in 1994 when she said she was first molested when she was 14, and pointed to an earlier testimony that he met her years later, when she may be of legal age.

Alessi replied that he couldn’t remember the exact year he met Jane.

The Maxwell trial is expected to continue Monday and run through January.

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Reporting by Luc Cohen; Adaptation by Sandra Maler and Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ghislaine-maxwells-lawyers-grill-ex-epstein-employee-who-testified-about-2021-12-03/