NEW
YORK, United States —
Jailed former socialite
Ghislaine Maxwell has been placed on suicide watch —
despite not being suicidal — according to her lawyers, who said they would move
to postpone her sentencing for sex trafficking if she remained in isolation.
اضافة اعلان
“Ms. Maxwell was abruptly removed from
general population and returned to solitary confinement” on Friday, attorney
Bobbi Sternheim wrote in a letter Saturday to Judge Alison Nathan.
She has been denied access to legal documents
and time to meet with lawyers and this has “prevented her from preparing for
sentencing,” which is set for Tuesday, he added.
Maxwell, who was convicted in New York
federal court for helping the late financier
Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse
girls, was placed on suicide watch without a psychological evaluation “and
without justification,” Sternheim said.
A psychologist evaluated the 60-year-old on
Saturday and “determined she is not suicidal,” he added.
If Maxwell remains on suicide watch, her
lawyers will move on Monday to postpone her sentencing, Sternheim said.
The
Oxford-educated daughter of the late
British press baron Robert Maxwell was convicted late last year on five of six
sexual abuse counts, the most serious for sex trafficking minors, and her
sentence could amount to an effective life term behind bars.
Prosecutors have asked that Maxwell receive
between 30 and 55 years in jail.
Her lawyers have called on Nathan to hand
down a sentence less than the US probation office’s recommended 20 years,
citing a traumatic childhood and claiming that Maxwell is being unfairly
punished because Epstein escaped trial.
Epstein killed himself in 2019 while awaiting
his own sex crimes trial in New York.
Maxwell has already been held in detention
for some two years following her arrest in New Hampshire in the summer of 2020.
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