Born in France and raised in Oxford , Maxwell is the daughter of British media proprietor and fraudster Robert Maxwell and the French-born researcher of the Holocaust , Elisabeth Maxwell. In the s she attended Balliol College, Oxford , and became a prominent member of London's social scene. Maxwell worked for her father until his death in ; she then moved to New York City, where she continued living as a socialite and had a relationship with Epstein.
Maxwell founded a non-profit group for the protection of oceans in Following sex trafficking allegations being brought by prosecutors against Epstein in July , the organisation announced cessation of operations the same month. Maxwell was arrested and charged by the federal government of the United States in July with the crimes of enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls, related to her association with Epstein [ 11 ] as his recruiter. Her father was from a Jewish family, and her mother was of Huguenot French Protestant descent.
Maxwell was born two days before a car accident that left her fifteen-year-old brother Michael in a prolonged coma until his death in Throughout childhood, Maxwell lived with her family in Oxford at Headington Hill Hall , a room mansion, where the offices of Pergamon Press , a publishing company run by her father, were also located. Maxwell had a close relationship with her father and was reportedly his favourite. Maxwell was a prominent member of the London social scene in the s.
According to Tom Bower , writing for The Sunday Times , in Robert invited her to the naming in her honour of his new yacht the Lady Ghislaine , at a shipyard in the Netherlands. That was just not consistent with his character. I think he was murdered. Maxwell moved to the United States in , shortly after her father's death. At the time, Maxwell worked at a real estate office on Madison Avenue and was reported to be socialising with celebrities. Accounts differ on when Maxwell first met American financier Jeffrey Epstein.
According to Epstein's former business partner, Steven Hoffenberg , Robert Maxwell introduced his daughter to Epstein in the late s. Maxwell had a romantic relationship with Epstein for several years in the early s and remained closely associated with him for more than 25 years until his death in In a deposition, several of Epstein's household employees testified that Epstein referred to her as his "main girlfriend" who also hired, fired, and supervised his staff, starting around Politico reported that Maxwell and Epstein had friendships with several prominent individuals in elite circles of politics, academia, business and law, including former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton , attorney Alan Dershowitz , and Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
