Tuesday 28 June 2022 10:45 PM TOM LEONARD: Maxwell's new prison is like Disneyland next to hellhole she has ... trends now
As she heads to a federal prison to complete her 20-year sentence, Ghislaine Maxwell can at least console herself that she didn’t surrender lightly. In fact, she and her dwindling band of supporters tried everything they could think of.
She can also reassure herself that it won’t be as bad as Brooklyn’s grim Metropolitan Detention Centre, her home for the past 23 months.
Maxwell’s next destination, largely based on the address she has given for where she intends to live on her release, is Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut.
The low-security facility, which has separate male and female prisons, was partly used as the inspiration for the fictional Litchfield Correctional Institution in the prison drama TV series Orange Is The New Black.
This new home will be ‘like Disneyland’ in comparison to Brooklyn, says Justin Paperny, whose company, White Collar Advice, advises high-profile clients on coping with life behind bars.
Maxwell’s offences are too severe for her to be placed in a ‘minimum security’ or open prison – the usual destination for white-collar criminals. But Danbury is hardly the Gulag. It has its own running track, a baseball pitch and a manicured lawn with trees and pathways.
The facility offers a ‘wide variety of hobby craft and music’ for inmates as well as circuit-training, gardening, aerobics and ‘over-50s’ fitness. There is also a library and chapel. Other than when they are sleeping or working, inmates can potentially spend the rest of the time roaming the facility.
The sentencing marks the end of a decades-long fight for justice by victims of Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. In court Tuesday Maxwell said that Epstein 'fooled all of those in his orbit'
Former Danbury inmates have complained that its connection with Orange Is The New Black has encouraged a misleading perception of it as ‘Club Fed’, with an almost holiday camp atmosphere.
They claim that inmates are often shackled during childbirth, Muslim women have hijabs ripped off their heads, and prisoners can expect intimate pat-down searches by male guards checking they aren’t smuggling food from the canteen.
But before Maxwell can make use of the facilities, the authorities will need to determine the level of security she will need. Psychologists will evaluate whether she once more needs to be placed on suicide watch and isolated from other prisoners.
Maxwell’s own lawyers have claimed, after a fellow Metropolitan Detention Centre inmate was allegedly offered money to hang her, that ‘there are numerous prison inmates who would not hesitate to kill Ms Maxwell – whether for money, fame, or simple “street cred”’.
If that proves to be the case at Danbury, she may find herself isolated once more.
In this courtroom sketch, Ghislaine Maxwell givers her statement in federal court, in New York, Tuesday. June 28, 2022. Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping the wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls
That said, she has already reportedly shown signs of adapting to prison life. Since the fallen socialite was arrested in New Hampshire nearly two years ago, her legal team had fought to make her miserable conditions a factor in her trial and sentencing.
But while even her accusers agreed that nobody could turn on the charm like Maxwell, it was still somewhat surprising to hear she has been doing the same in jail.
Just a few days ago, her lawyers submitted to court a letter from a fellow inmate at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre, who wanted to express her ‘positive impressions’ of a woman portrayed by prosecutors as a ‘monstrous’ predator.
Tatiana Venegas recalled how the Englishwoman introduced herself to everyone with a handshake, a ‘genuine, kind’ smile and the greeting: ‘Hi, I’m Maxwell.’ Within a week of arriving in the unit from solitary confinement, the Oxford alumna had also volunteered to teach both yoga and English as a second language, as well as to help her fellow inmates study for the GED (a high school equivalency diploma).
As someone accused of masterminding a £2.3million cocaine deal, Venegas may not be everyone’s idea of a reliable character witness.
But Maxwell – whose huge contacts book once included presidents, prime ministers and countless celebrities – can hardly choose her friends nowadays. Not only did Venegas’s testimony conveniently echo Maxwell’s lawyers’ claims about her do-gooding work in jail, it also spoke once more to Maxwell’s impressive persuasive powers.
How the other half live: Maxwell’s former hideaway, a $1million New Hampshire property that she fled to when Epstein was arrested
And the Danbury Correctional Institution in Connecticut, where she will serve time
Being kind and generous with her time was just the sort of behaviour that Maxwell’s victims say helped lull them into a false sense of security with her and her paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein.
People she didn’t need to charm saw a
