Document 20-6000

New Information for the Court's Consideration The defense has devoted substantial time and effort to compile information that was not available to Ms. Maxwell at the time of the initial bail hearing that squarely addresses each of the factors the Court considered at that hearing. Because of these efforts, Ms. Maxwell can now present the following additional information in support of her renewed bail application: - Letter from Ms. Maxwell's spouse. This letter demonstrates that Ms. Maxwell has powerful family ties to the United States that she will not abandon. It describes the committed relationship between Ms. Maxwell and her spouse, who is a U.S. citizen, and how they lived a quiet family life together in the United States for over four years immediately prior to her arrest. The letter further explains that Ms. Maxwell was forced to leave her family and drop out of the public eye, not because she was trying to evade law enforcement, but because the intense media frenzy and threats following the arrest and death of Jeffrey Epstein threatened the safety and wellbeing of herself and her family, For these same reasons, Ms. Maxwell's spouse did not come forward as a co-signer at the time of the initial hearing. (Ex. A). - Letters from numerous other friends and family members. These letters from Ms. Maxwell's other sureties and several family members and friends attest to Ms. Maxwell's strong, forthright character and their confidence that she will not flee. The sureties also describe the significant financial distress they would suffer if Ms. Maxwell were to violate her bail conditions. (Exs. B-N, W-X). - Financial report. The financial report, prepared by the accounting firm Macalvins Limited, provides an accounting of Ms. Maxwell's financial condition from 2015-2020, and discloses (i) all of her own assets, (ii) all assets held in trust, and (iii) all of the assets held by her spouse over that same time period. The report reflects that the total value of assets in all three categories is approximately $22.5 million, which is the amount of the proposed bond. (Ex. O). - Report from former IRS agent. a former IRS agent with over 40 years of experience in criminal tax and financial fraud investigations, reviewed the Macalvins report and confirmed that it presents a complete and accurate picture of Ms. Maxwell and her spouse's assets from 2015-2020. (Ex. P). - Statement from the person in charge of Ms. Maxwell's security. This statement rebuts the government's claim that she attempted to hide from law enforcement at the time of her arrest. (Ex. S). - Extradition waivers and expert affidavits. To address the Court's concerns about extradition, Ms. Maxwell will present irrevocable written waivers of her right to --- PAGE BREAK --- contest extradition in both the United Kingdom and France.2 We also provide opinions from experts in the extradition laws of the France and the United Kingdom stating that it is highly unlikely that Ms. Maxwell would be able to resist extradition from either country in the event she were granted bail and somehow fled to either country, which she has no intention of doing. Their opinions also state that any extradition proceeding would be resolved promptly. (Exs. T-V). Lack of corroborating evidence. The government represented to the Court that it had "contemporaneous documents," including "diary entries" in support of its case. (Dkt. 4 at 5). The defense has now reviewed the discovery produced to date, including all of the documents that the government described as the core of its case against Ms. Maxwell. As explained more fully below, the discovery contains no meaningful documentary corroboration as to Maxwell and only a small number of documents from the time period of the conspiracy charged in the indictment. As an example, the government produced only The evidence in this case boils down to witness testimony about events that took place over 25 years ago. Far from creating a flight risk, the lack of corroboration only reinforces Ms. Maxwell's conviction that she has been falsely accused and strengthens her long-standing desire to face the allegations against her and clear her name in court. Oppressive conditions of confinement. Ms. Maxwell has now been detained for over 150 days in the equivalent of solitary confinement since she was indicted and arrested on July 2, 2020, despite the fact that she is not a suicide risk and has not received a single disciplinary infraction. The draconian conditions to which Ms. Maxwell is subjected are not only unjust and punitive, but also impair her ability to review the voluminous discovery produced by the government and to participate meaningfully in the preparation of her defense. Furthermore, the recent COVID-19 outbreak at the MDC threatens her safety and well-being. Ms. Maxwell Should Be Placed on Restrictive Bail Conditions During her more than five months in isolation, Ms. Maxwell has had to watch as she has been relentlessly attacked in a deluge of media articles that spiked over a year ago when Epstein 2 Ms. Maxwell has not yet signed these waivers because we have not been able to visit her in the MDC to obtain her signature since she was quarantined over two weeks ago. She will sign them as soon as legal visits resume. 3 In a letter dated October 13, 2020, we asked the government to provide additional discovery including, among other things, In light of the serious Brady infractions in recent cases before this Court, and the recent order filed in this case pursuant to Rule 5(F) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (see Dkt. 68), the government's failure to obtain concerning. 5 --- PAGE BREAK --- that will reasonably assure the appearance of such person as required and the safety of any other person and the community." The evidence submitted herewith relates directly to factors on which the Court relied in its initial detention order. Among the bases for the Court's initial order denying bail were its findings that: - Ms. Maxwell's lack of "significant family ties" in the United States suggested "that flight would not pose an insurmountable burden for her" (Tr. 84); - the Court lacked "a clear picture of Ms. Maxwell's finances and the resources available to her" that would allow it to set reasonable bail conditions (Tr. 87); - "[c]ircumstances of her arrest . . . may cast some doubt on the claim that she was not hiding from the government" (Tr. 85); - Ms. Maxwell "is a citizen of France, a nation that does not appear to extradite its citizens" (Tr. 83); and - the government had proffered that its "witness testimony will be corroborated by significant contemporaneous documentary evidence" (Tr. 82). The additional evidence submitted herewith demonstrates that Ms. Maxwell does have significant family ties in the United States; that her assets have been thoroughly disclosed and reasonable bail conditions can be set; that Ms. Maxwell has never attempted to hide from the government; that Ms. Maxwell has waived her extradition rights and it is highly likely she would be extradited from the United Kingdom or France; and that the government's case against her is not supported by the corroborating documentary evidence which the government represented at the initial hearing. The evidence submitted herewith is significant and substantial, and it could not have reasonably been obtained, assembled, and submitted in the 12 days between Ms. Maxwell's arrest and her initial detention hearing. This evidence has a material bearing on whether reasonable bail conditions can be set, and it shows that the proposed set of conditions will reasonably assure Ms. Maxwell's appearance in court. 9 DOJ-OGR-00020029 --- PAGE BREAK --- II. Ms. Maxwell Should Be Granted Bail Under the Proposed Strict Bail Conditions A. Ms. Maxwell Has Deep Family Ties to the United States and Numerous Sureties to Support Her Bond Attached to this submission are letters from Ms. Maxwell's spouse and from numerous close family members and friends, many of whom have agreed to serve as sureties to support Ms. Maxwell's renewed bail application. (See Exs. A-N, W-X). Far from the cruel caricature that the press has so recklessly depicted since the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein, these letters demonstrate that Ms. Maxwell is generous, loving, and devoted to her family and friends, and that her life is firmly rooted in this country with her spouse [REDACTED]. The signatories of these letters have known Ms. Maxwell for decades, and some for her entire life. All know her to be the antithesis of what the government has alleged. They trust her completely, including with their minor children. These people have stepped forward to support Ms. Maxwell, despite the considerable risk that, if their names ever become public, they will be subjected to some of the same relentless and harassing media intrusion and personal threats that Ms. Maxwell has experienced for years. As a sign of their confidence that Ms. Maxwell will remain in this country, the sureties have agreed to sign their own bonds and to post meaningful pledges of cash or property in amounts that would cause them significant financial distress if Ms. Maxwell were to violate her bail conditions. These letters directly address the concern the Court expressed at the last bail hearing that Ms. Maxwell did not have "any dependents [or] significant family ties" to the United States. (Tr. 84). If Ms. Maxwell were to flee, she would be leaving behind the family that has been the center of her life [REDACTED], she would be abandoning her spouse [REDACTED]. 10 DOJ-OGR-00020030 --- PAGE BREAK --- Case: 20-6000 Document: 39 Filed: 06/30/2021 Page: 15 of 45 B. Ms. Maxwell Has Provided a Thorough Review of Her Finances for the Past Five Years The government raised concerns at the initial bail hearing about the accuracy and completeness of the financial disclosures that Ms. Maxwell provided to Pretrial Services. (Dkt. 22 at 11-12; Tr. 28-29, 34-35). The Court stated that it did not have "a clear picture of Ms. Maxwell's finances and the resources available to her" and therefore had no way "to set financial bail conditions that could reasonably assure her appearance in court." (Tr. 86-87). To address the Court's questions about Ms. Maxwell's finances, defense counsel retained Macalvins, a highly reputable accounting firm in the United Kingdom, to conduct an analysis of Ms. Maxwell's assets and finances for the past five years. The Macalvins accountants reviewed thousands of pages of financial documents, including bank statements, tax returns, FBAR filings, and other materials to create a clear picture of the assets held by Ms. Maxwell and her spouse, as well as any assets held in trust for the benefit of Ms. Maxwell, and the source of those assets from 2015-2020. This analysis, which is based in substantial part on documents that the government provided in discovery, has involved a significant amount of work and has taken substantial time to complete. It was not possible to perform this analysis in the brief time between Ms. Maxwell's arrest and the initial bail hearing, especially with Ms. Maxwell detained following her arrest. The Macalvins report was also reviewed by [REDACTED], a Certified Fraud Examiner and a former IRS Special Agent with over 40 years of experience in complex financial fraud investigations. As a Special Agent, [REDACTED] investigated numerous financial fraud and criminal tax cases, including several in this District. [REDACTED] reviewed the Macalvins report and the underlying documents and determined that it presents a complete and accurate summary of the assets held by Ms. Maxwell and her spouse, as well as assets that were, or are currently, held in 15 DOJ-OGR-00020035 --- PAGE BREAK --- foreign bank accounts. Ms. Maxwell is not trying to hide anything from the government. She has been entirely transparent with her finances and has filed accurate and timely joint tax returns with her spouse for the last four years, and she has put it all at risk of forfeiture if she flees under the proposed bail package. The Macalvins report and the report of give the Court a clear picture of Ms. Maxwell's finances. Accordingly, the Court should have no pause about granting her on bail on the proposed terms. C. Ms. Maxwell Was Not Hiding from the Government Before Her Arrest 1. Ms. Maxwell Was Trying to Protect Herself from a Media Frenzy and from Physical Threats The letter from Ms. Maxwell's spouse also forcefully debunks the fiction that Ms. Maxwell was trying to conceal her whereabouts from the government before her arrest, as the government argued at the first bail hearing. (Tr. 25). Ms. Maxwell made efforts to remove herself from the public eye solely to prevent the intrusion of the frenzied press into her personal family life and to protect herself, her spouse, from third parties who threatened violence. To suggest that she was a fugitive is patently wrong. After Epstein's arrest and subsequent death in BOP custody, the media coverage of Ms. Maxwell spiked dramatically, as the press rushed to substitute Ms. Maxwell for Epstein as the target of the scandal. The graph below illustrates the volume of press articles relating to Ms. Maxwell over the course of the last five years.7 The graph shows that Ms. Maxwell was mentioned in news articles only sporadically between October 2015 and June 2019. It was not until Mr. Epstein's arrest in July 2019 that Ms. Maxwell was thrown into the media spotlight. For example, Ms. Maxwell was mentioned in only 59 articles in total from October 2015 to June 2019. Immediately following Epstein's arrest, however, she was 7 In order to quantify the number of articles published about Ms. Maxwell, we used Nexis NewsDesk, a media monitoring and analytics service provided by LexisNexis. 18 DOJ-OGR-00020038 --- PAGE BREAK --- Case#: 20-6000 Document#: 39 Filed: 06/23/20 Page: 36 of 45 exaggerated response to Epstein's death, effectively punishing Ms. Maxwell for the BOP's own negligence with respect to Epstein.11 Counsel has attempted to address the restrictions in numerous letters, emails and calls to the MDC warden, the MDC legal department, and the prosecutors, but to no avail. Rather than repeating these points here at length, we refer the Court to our letter to the MDC warden, dated October 29, 2020, which details the most serious and extraordinarily restrictive conditions of confinement.12 These include: - De Facto Solitary Confinement - Excessive Surveillance - Excessive Scanning and Strip Searching - Deprivation of Food - Deprivation of Sleep - Deprivation of Communication with Family and Friends - Compromised Communication with Legal Counsel The conditions of Ms. Maxwell's detention are utterly inappropriate, and totally disproportionate for a non-violent pretrial detainee with no prior criminal history facing non-violent charges a quarter-century old. Moreover, they adversely impact her ability to prepare her defense and compromise her physical health and psychological wellbeing. In addition to these intolerable conditions, Ms. Maxwell has had to contend with numerous unacceptable delays and technical problems with the discovery that the government has produced to her thus far. We have raised these issues with the prosecutors on numerous occasions. As we advised the Court in our letter of October 23, 2020, defense counsel first 11 These conditions are especially inappropriate because Ms. Maxwell has been an exemplary inmate and has not received any disciplinary infractions since her arrest. In fact, she has been made a suicide watch inmate, which is the highest and most trusted responsibility that an inmate can have. It is the height of irony that Ms. Maxwell is being constantly surveilled as if she were a suicide risk when she, herself, is trusted enough (if she were ever released from isolation) to monitor inmates who are truly at risk of suicide. 12 The Warden never responded to the letter. In our response to the government's 90-day status report concerning MDC conditions, counsel requested that the Warden provide a first-hand report to the Court and counsel. Following Court directive for a report from the MDC, MDC Legal submitted a letter that recited BOP policy but failed to address a number of concerns. 36 DOJ-OGR-00020056