Federal prosecutors filed sex trafficking charges against Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's former associate and ex-girlfriend, claiming that she recruited and groomed a 14-year-old girl to participate in sex acts with Epstein as recently as 2004.
Prosecutors allege that Maxwell and Epstein recruited the underage girl to conduct sexual massages at Epstein's Palm Beach home.
In exchange, they paid her hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter, prosecutors allege. The latest charges were filed in a superseding indictment Monday.
Maxwell had previously been charged by federal prosecutors in New York with conspiracy, encouraging minors to travel to participate in unlawful sex acts, and transporting minors to engage in criminal sexual activity for allegedly grooming and recruiting underage girls between 1994 and 1997.
The new indictment includes a federal sex trafficking charge unrelated to interstate travel.
The new victim, unlike the other victims identified in the previous indictment, did not cross state lines. However, the charge seeks to solidify Maxwell's position at the center of Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
Epstein and Maxwell allegedly pressured girls to recruit other girls, including others under the age of 18, to give Epstein "sexualized massages," according to the indictment.
"Maxwell's presence as an adult woman helped put the victims at ease as Maxwell and Epstein intended," Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in announcing the charges against Maxwell last year.
The addition of a new victim means that Maxwell would likely face more prison time if convicted, said former federal prosecutor David S. Weinstein.
Maxwell is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Federal prosecutors accused Epstein in 2019 of running a sex trafficking enterprise out of his Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida homes between 2002 and 2005.
According to the indictment, Epstein used staff and associates to lure the girls to his homes and paid some of his victims to hire other girls for him to abuse.
Epstein, who had pleaded not guilty, died in federal custody on Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting trial.
The New York City Chief Medical Examiner's Office ruled Epstein died of suicide by hanging, but an autopsy performed by a doctor hired by Epstein's family challenges that finding.
