Ghislaine Maxwell selling London home to cover legal fees

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and close confidant of Jeffrey Epstein who is awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, is selling her home in London to finance her legal defense, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday citing her family’s spokesman.

Maxwell is being held without bail in a New York jail, where she has been since her arrest in July. She’s being charged with four counts related to conspiring to entice minors to travel and engage in illegal sex acts from 1994 to 1997, and two counts of perjury for allegedly lying to prosecutors.

The sale of the property is nearing completion, a spokesman for the Maxwell family told The Wall Street Journal. He declined to reveal the buyer or the sale price.

The Hill has reached out to a Maxwell spokesperson for comment.

The transaction ran into obstacles with Maxwell’s bank, Barclays PLC, according to The Wall Street Journal. The paper reported that in February, the day after Maxwell’s lawyers deposited the first payment from the buyer, a total of £130,000, the bank shut down down her account.

In a letter from Barclays reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the bank referred to regulations that prohibit customers from putting the bank in a situation where it “might break a law, regulation, code or other duty.”

Maxwell’s spokesperson told the paper that the Maxwell family was able to complete the deal, even with the account closed.

The house in reference is on Kinnerton Street in London’s upmarket Belgravia district, The Wall Street Journal noted. This is the same house where one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, says she was brought in 2001, when she says she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew. Giuffre was 17 years old at the time.

Andrew has since disputed the account, but there is a photo of the two — with Maxwell in the background — that was supposedly taken in the house on Kinnerton street.

In 2019, Andrew told the BBC, “I can tell you categorically I don’t remember meeting her at all. I do not remember a photograph being taken and I’ve said consistently and frequently that we never had any sort of sexual contact whatever.” He also suggested that the photo of him and Giuffre may have been faked.

In December, Maxwell was again denied bail, after being ruled a flight risk. Her court trial is set to begin in July.