US
Ghislaine Maxwell: Prison staff fired after leaking her emails, says lawyer
Prison staff who leaked details about Ghislaine Maxwell’s favourable conditions in a minimum-security facility have been sacked, according to a lawyer for the disgraced British socialite.
Leah Saffian said employees at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas were “terminated for improper, unauthorised access” to an email system which allows “inmates to communicate with the outside world”.
It comes after Maxwell‘s “privileged client-attorney email correspondence” was allegedly shared.
The co-conspirator of the late billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2022 for sex trafficking after recruiting young girls for her financier ex-boyfriend during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein. File pic: US Department of Justice
She was moved from a low-security facility in Tallahassee, Florida, to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in August, a week after she met deputy attorney general Todd Blanche and Maxwell’s lawyer David Oscar Markus.
Within days of arriving, Maxwell, 63, gushed in emails to her family and friends about her new surroundings.
The prison camp is an all-female institution where inmates convicted of non-violent or white-collar crimes sleep in dormitory-style quarters.
She has reportedly had perks such as meals sent to her dormitory room, late-night workouts and permission to shower when other inmates are in bed, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“The food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff responsive and polite,” she wrote in an email seen by Sky’s US partner NBC News. The messages were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee.
Maxwell is now serving her sentence at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas. File pic: AP
‘Much happier here’
“I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass,” Maxwell wrote to a relative, adding, “I am much, much happier here and more importantly safe.”
She also said: “The institution is run in an orderly fashion, which makes for a safer, more comfortable environment for all people concerned, inmates and guards alike.”
Maxwell is planning to appeal to US President Donald Trump to commute her 20-year prison sentence, a whistleblower told House Democrats.
But Ms Saffian claimed Maxwell “has not requested a commutation – or made a pardon – application to the second Trump administration”.
Maxwell was convicted on five sex trafficking-related counts in 2021.
She appealed the conviction, but the Supreme Court rejected her challenge in early October.
Sky News has contacted Federal Prison Camp Bryan for comment.