Ghislaine Maxwell, ex-girlfriend and associate of the late Jeffrey Epstein, is woken up every 15 minutes while in prison to ensure she is still alive, according to her attorney.
“Despite non-stop in-cell camera surveillance Ms. Maxwell’s sleep is disrupted every 15 minutes when she is awakened by a flashlight to ascertain whether she is breathing,” attorney Bobbi Sternheim wrote in a letter filed Tuesday, CNN reported.
Maxwell was arrested on July 2 and was charged with grooming and abusing underage girls, and she has pled not guilty to the charges.
She is awaiting her court trial, scheduled for July 2021, at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Her lawyer said her placement at the detention center is “in de facto solitary confinement under the most restrictive conditions,” adding that Maxwell is “excessively and invasively searched” and monitored 24 hours per day.
Additionally, the attorney stated that psychologists monitor Maxwell for several hours a day without her knowledge.
Sternheim argued that the treatment Maxwell received is worse than that of those convicted of terrorism or capital murder and has asked U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan to order the detention center to address the court regarding this reported surveillance.
Nathan previously denied Maxwell bail after determining she was a flight risk and denied her request in August to be moved to the general jail population.
The news of heightened surveillance comes after Epstein’s death in prison last summer while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges at a separate federal facility in New York.
Epstein’s death on Aug. 10 was ruled a suicide, and prosecutors have charged two guards on duty for filing false records, alleging the officers were neglecting their responsibilities to monitor Epstein, CNN added. The guards have pleaded not guilty.
Maxwell’s lawyers have argued she has never been diagnosed as suicidal and said her current conditions are unfair.
This week, Maxwell was placed in 14-day quarantine after a possible exposure to a jail staffer with COVID-19, though prosecutors said she tested negative for the virus.