Ghislaine Maxwell, left, pictured at the Park Avenue Armory gala in New York on Oct. 6, 2011. Photo: Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime friend and close confidante of Jeffrey Epstein who pleaded not guilty Tuesday to helping the deceased New York and Florida-based financier operate a long-running underage sex trafficking ring, will remain in jail ahead of a planned trial next July, a Manhattan federal judge ruled.

In a more than two-hour-long hearing that featured statements by two of Epstein's alleged victims, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan of the Southern District of New York denied the former British socialite's request to wait out the trial from a luxury hotel in Manhattan, agreeing with prosecutors' fears that Maxwell, who holds citizenship in three countries, represented an "extreme" risk to flee and possibly avoid extradition back to the United States.

"The court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that no combination of conditions could reasonably assure her presence at court," Nathan said. "The risks are simply too great."

Maxwell was accused in an unsealed indictment on July 2 of befriending girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein and then lying under oath about her involvement. She is charged with two counts of conspiracy, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transporting minors for illegal sex acts and two counts of perjury.

She appeared via video feed from Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, where she has been housed following her arrest earlier this month in New Hampshire. The hearing was broadcast via closed-circuit television at the Southern District courthouse and on a teleconference line that quickly reached its 1,000-caller capacity. The New York Law Journal monitored the proceedings remotely.

On Tuesday, prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said that Maxwell and her attorneys had failed to provide a full accounting of her vast finances and argued that her international connections made it likely that she may try to flee the country.

Mark Cohen, Maxwell's defense lawyer, meanwhile, accused government attorneys of mischaracterizing his client's efforts to avoid detection at a 156-acre estate in Bradford, New Hampshire, which she purchased in an all-cash sale through an anonymous LLC. In lieu of detention, Cohen had proposed home confinement in a New York City hotel with strict monitoring, including the use of private security guards.

Maxwell, he said, had been litigating civil cases in the Southern District through her attorneys since 2015 and had never attempted to leave, despite holding French and U.K. passports.

"This is the opposite of somebody who is seeking to flee," Cohen said.

Nathan's ruling came nearly one year to the day since a federal judge denied a similar request by Epstein. The financier was later found dead by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting his own trial in the Southern District.

While Epstein's death ended the criminal case against him, investigators have continued to probe his close associates and employees who may have enabled his abuses. An investigation, headed by the public corruption unit of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office remains ongoing.

In her ruling Tuesday, Nathan rejected defense claims that incarceration would hamper Maxwell's ability to prepare for trial or recklessly expose her to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still raging across the U.S. The judge set a July 12, 2021, trial date, and ordered that pretrial defense motions be submitted by Dec. 21.

Cohen said he plans to mount a number of "significant legal challenges" to the indictment and the evidence that the government has presented. Crucially, Cohen said that Maxwell was shielded by a nonprosecution agreement Epstein entered with prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida as part of a controversial plea agreement with the office of then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta in 2007.

Though the NPA did not explicitly name Maxwell, it did give broad protections to "any potential co-conspirators" of Epstein.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said last year that it was not bound by the terms of that agreement, a position that Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe reiterated on Tuesday.

"It is the government's strong view that that agreement does not bind this office whatsoever, with respect to any kind of conduct or any individual," she said. "That agreement does not bind this office whatsoever.

The abuses outlined in Maxwell's indictment involved three unnamed victims and occurred between 1994 and 1997. The encounters occurred in New York, Florida, New Mexico and at Maxwell's home in London.

On Tuesday, two of the alleged victims urged Nathan to deny Maxwell's bail request, saying that they feared for their safety if she were to be released.

One woman, who was not identified by name, said in a written statement that "without Ghislaine, Jeffrey could not have done what he did." A second woman, Annie Farmer, called Maxwell a "sexual predator," who has "never shown any remorse for her heinous crimes."

Farmer, who spoke by phone at Tuesday's hearing, had also sued Epstein's estate and is said to be participating in a compensation fund for Epstein's victims.

The criminal charges against Epstein covered the years 2002 to 2005, more than 15 years after the alleged misconduct cited in Maxwell's case. While the broader investigation of Epstein's network remains open, prosecutors said Tuesday that they had no plans to file additional charges against Maxwell.

Cohen claimed that the case, which reached back more than 25 years, was an attempt to "dance around" the NPA and included no tapes or video evidence.

"That's all this case is about," he said. "It's all about tactics."

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