Accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell is enduring “grotesque” conditions while behind bars in Brooklyn that “amounts to torture,” her brother complained Wednesday.
“No human being should have to go through what she’s been put through,” Ian Maxwell, 64, told the BBC in his first broadcast interview in more than 30 years.
“It is really degrading … this is not the way that a democratic country should be running its prison system,” he said of conditions in the Metropolitan Detention Center.
“It’s grotesque and in that respect it amounts to torture,” he insisted.
Lawyers for Ghislaine have repeatedly claimed that the British socialite is being abused by jail guards, while being fed inedible food and brown water — which has caused so much stress, she’s lost her hair.
“I am worried about Ghislaine’s capacity to endure much more of this treatment,” he said of his 59-year-old sister, who is facing serious sex charges connected to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Ian stressed that Ghislaine is “presumed innocent,” blaming “fantastic press reporting that is way out of what is correct about her as a human being and about the case generally.”
He also attacked prosecutors for revealing so little about the case against his sister, including the identities of the three accusers she is alleged to have abused, as well as the time and dates of the alleged offenses.
“Justice cuts both ways. There is justice for victims of abuse, but there is also justice for those who are accused of that,” he complained.
Despite this, his sister “has been in prison now for nearly 250 days, and counting.”
“She is in effective isolation in a cell that measures 6 feet by 9 feet and which includes a concrete bed and a toilet. There is no natural light. She is under 24-hour, round-the-clock surveillance with 10 cameras including one that moves and tracks her movements. That is her existence. Every day,” he said.
“The water that is provided through the prison is brown, and the food that she’s given is very highly microwaved and basically inedible,” he said.
“She’s a 59-year-old woman and we understand that she’s losing her hair, and she’s also having trouble with her eyesight and her ability to concentrate because this is a tremendous pressure to be under.”
Still, he insisted the media heiress “is resolute,” saying, “She’s strong in her spirit and undaunted, but obviously this is very, very wearing physically.”
He insisted her conditions are a “grotesque overreaction” to the fallout from Epstein killing himself while he was held before his own trial on serious child-sex charges.
“Ghislaine is not a suicide risk. She has never been a suicide risk,” he claimed. “She is being completely overmanaged.”
He also said there was no reason for his sister to be incarcerated at all because she “isn’t somebody who’s seeking to flee.”
“She’s not in the business of running away from anybody,” he said, also stressing that her finances are controlled so that she “can’t just take some large amount of money and disappear.”
In December, a judge refused to release Ghislaine on $28.5 million bail, saying she poses a flight risk.
Ian claimed he only saw his sister with Epstein once, and that they had drifted apart by the late 1990s.
“I wish she’d never met the man, obviously it goes without saying,” he told the BBC.
Gloria Allred, an attorney representing Ghislaine and Epstein accusers, insisted that bail “should be out of the question” because it would be “very upsetting to the victims.”
“A cell is not a palace, a cell is not a wealthy estate with all the amenities in it,” she told the BBC.
“I know Miss Maxwell is probably suffering in jail,” she conceded, while stressing that “the charges against her are very serious” and “she needs to stay where she is, in custody.”
Maxwell has denied any involvement in grooming minors for her late pal Epstein, who committed suicide in a Lower Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex charges.
This content was originally published here.