Laura Menninger is followed by Jeffrey Pagliuca, defense attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell, leaves the Manhattan Federal Court after the first day of Maxwell's trial. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal defense team plans to put the accounts of four accusers at the heart of their defense to charges that the former British socialite had trafficked underage girls for sex with Jeffrey Epstein, her attorney told a Manhattan federal jury on Monday. The strategy, outlined at the beginning of what is expected to be six-week trial, also portrayed the 59-year-old Maxwell as a "scapegoat" for the deceased financier, who died by suicide while awaiting his own criminal sex-trafficking trial in 2019. Maxwell's attorney, Bobbi Sternheim, argued during opening statements that the witnesses' memories were "unreliable and suspect," corrupted by the passage of time and saturated media coverage of the high-profile case.

Bobbi Sternheim, defense attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, leaves the Manhattan Federal Court after the first day of Maxwell's trial. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

She also said, to the repeated objection of Manhattan federal prosecutors, that the women had been the targets of civil attorneys who looked to capitalize on their stories for financial gain. "This case is about memory, manipulation and money," Sternheim said in an opening that featured three sidebar discussions with U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan, who is presiding over the case. "They have been impacted by money, big bucks," Sternheim said, referencing payments that each had received from a settlement fund with Epstein's estate. Maxwell, who was arrested and charged in July 2020, is accused of six counts, including enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sexual acts and transporting a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity. She is also charged with two counts of perjury for allegedly lying under oath about her involvement with Epstein. The defense arguments stood in stark contrast to those of Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz, who described Maxwell as Epstein's "best friend and right hand," who for years enabled the financier's sexual abuses by recruiting young girls and normalizing sexual behavior with Epstein. According to Pomerantz, Maxwell would win the trust of the teenage girls before placing them and groomed them for sexualized massages with Epstein. At times, the prosecutor said, Maxwell undressed in front of the girls, and sometimes participated in the encounters herself. Later, Pomerantz said, Maxwell developed a "pyramid scheme of abuse," enticing young victims to recruit other girls in exchange for financial payments. All the while, Pomerantz said, Maxwell functioned as the "lady of the house" at Epstein's residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, enforcing a strict set of rules for Epstein's on-site staff and "culture of silence" that allowed the pair to operate, in tandem and in plain sight for years. "What happened inside those massage rooms was not a massage," Pomerantz said. "It was sexual abuse."