Ghislaine Maxwell Defense Wraps up With Eva Andersson-Dubin Testimony

• Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorneys rested their case after just two days of defense testimony.
• Among their final witnesses was Eva Dubin, an ex-girlfriend of Epstein’s who is married to billionaire Glenn Dubin.
• She denied being the “Eva” who one of Maxwell’s accusers alleged had group sex with her, Epstein, and Maxwell.

Eva Andersson-Dubin, an ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein’s, on Friday denied suggestions of group sex with a woman who alleged that Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated orgies when the accuser was 14.

Maxwell’s attorneys rested their case on Friday after just two days of testimony. Maxwell told the judge she would not testify.

“Your honor, the government has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, so there’s no need for me to testify,” she told US District Judge Alison Nathan on Friday afternoon.

Closing arguments are expected to take place Monday, after which the jury will begin deliberations.

Dubin, who is married to billionaire financier Glenn Dubin, was called to the witness stand to address allegations from “Jane,” a pseudonym for the first accuser who testified against Maxwell for the state. Prosecutors have accused Maxwell of sex-trafficking girls to Epstein and sexually abusing them herself, often through massages. The allegations in the indictment against Maxwell focus on activity between 1997 and 2004, and concern misconduct against four accusers, who were as young as 14 at the time.

In her testimony earlier in the trial, Jane said Maxwell facilitated sexual massages and group sexualized encounters with Epstein. Maxwell sometimes participated in these encounters herself, Jane testified. She also said that women named Eva, Michelle, Kelly, and Sophie sometimes participated in those orgies, which she said happened at Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, home in the 1990s. Jane didn’t reveal the last names of those women in her testimony.

Dubin, who said she dated Epstein “on and off” between 1983 and 1991, was presented a photo of Jane on Friday. She testified that she had never met Jane before, and “absolutely” never participated in group sex with Jane.

Maxwell’s lawyers made a last-minute request to get US Marshals to force a woman to testify

Before Dubin testified Friday, a woman named Michelle Healy told the court that she worked in Epstein’s office from 1996-1999 and glowingly referred to Maxwell as a “fantastic” boss. But Healy testified that she’d never visited Epstein’s Palm Beach home.

And in cross-examination, Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe pointed out that Dubin primarily lived in Paris during the time the alleged abuse of Jane took place. Dubin and Healy each testified that they were not the only people with the names “Eva” and “Michelle” in the entire world, and that they didn’t know every single person in Epstein’s life.

“It’s a very common name in Northern Europe,” Dubin said.

Defense attorneys made no move to call a woman named “Sophie” to the stand, although on Friday, Dubin looked at flight records from Epstein’s private jets that showed she was on the same flight as a woman named Sophie Biddle. Dubin told the court she recognized Biddle as Epstein’s masseuse.

 

REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

Maxwell’s defense attorneys told Nathan Friday morning that the person named “Kelly” who Jane identified had never responded to a subpoena, which was first issued more than a month ago. In a last-ditch effort, they asked Nathan to order US Marshals to bring Kelly into the courthouse before the end of the day, but withdrew the application in the afternoon.

Maxwell’s attorneys also abandoned plans to call a British man named Alexander Hamilton, who they said had knowledge of property records related to Maxwell, to testify. They hoped to get an 81-year-old man who owns a pub across the street from Maxwell’s London townhouse to take the stand, arguing that he’d testify Maxwell wasn’t living there during periods of alleged abuse in the home, before dropping the issue.

Dubin remained friends with Epstein after their breakup

In her testimony, Dubin — a medical physician and former model and Miss Sweden who was known as Eva Andersson before her marriage — gave a handful of new details about her relationship with Epstein.

The two remained friends after breaking up in 1991, she testified, and she visited his Palm Beach home a handful of times every year on average in the following decade.

Dubin’s three children — all born in the 1990s — saw Epstein as an avuncular figure, she said. She identified a couple of photos found in Epstein’s Palm Beach home that depicted her children spending time with the pedophile. The children called Epstein “Uncle Eff,” she said, which was short for “Jeff.” Insider has previously reported that the Dubin family remained closed with Epstein even after his jail stint for soliciting a minor for prostitution, in the late 2000s.

 

REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

Dubin did not say whether she was testifying in Maxwell’s defense in response to a subpoena. And Dubin did not address allegations previously reported by Insider that Epstein considered marrying Dubin’s then-24-year-old daughter in order to leave his vast fortune to her without paying estate taxes.

Dubin also told jurors that she was being treated for a medical issue that involved memory loss, and had trouble remembering specific events.

She testified that Epstein’s relationship with Maxwell was ambiguous in the 1990s, and when asked if they had an open relationship, Dubin said she didn’t know.

“It’s hard to define their relationship,” she said. “But they were living in the same house.”

Maxwell’s attorneys have tried to cast doubt on the most serious allegations against her

Over the course of two-and-a-half weeks in a Manhattan federal courtroom, prosecutors presented four accusers who said Maxwell was instrumental in their sexual abuse at the hands of Epstein. The accusers also alleged that Maxwell and Epstein intimidated them by referencing their connections to powerful people, and dangled attractive promises like scholarships or career advancement before them.

However, Nathan has directed jurors not to consider testimony from the third and fourth accusers as evidence of “illegal sexual activity,” as charged in the indictment against Maxwell. The judge has scheduled a Saturday conference to finalize instructions for what jurors would need to find in order to consider Maxwell guilty.

Throughout the trial, Maxwell’s defense team had sought to paint her accusers as motivated by money. They targeted Jane with this theory on Friday afternoon, reading a statement to the jury from Robert Glassman, an attorney who helped Jane get $5 million from a compensation fund set up for Epstein’s victims. In the statement, Glassman said that before prosecutors charged Maxwell, he told Jane it would “help her case” if she agreed to testify in a criminal trial.

Prosecutors had also presented testimony from Epstein’s former employees — including the pilots of his private jets and household managers — who detailed his vast wealth, and how Maxwell oversaw the operation of his properties. Numerous documents and photographs presented to the jury, obtained through FBI raids, demonstrated how integrated Maxwell was in Epstein’s life. The state ultimately slashed its planned testimony by a week, however, significantly abbreviating a trial that was expected to last up to six weeks.

 

REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

For their part, Maxwell’s attorneys offered little affirmative defense, and focused on presenting testimony that might sow doubt for jurors. Defense attorneys spent half a day on Thursday presenting testimony from Elizabeth Loftus, a decorated psychologist and semi-professional defense witness whose scientific work focuses on how memories can be unreliable. Prosecutors sought to draw attention to the fact that Loftus was a defense witness at Harvey Weinstein’s trial, but the disgraced Hollywood producer’s name was never brought up again after Maxwell’s lawyers objected and had a sidebar with the judge.

 

US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York

The first defense witness on Thursday was a woman who worked as an office assistant for Maxwell for six years and had little of relevance to say about the case, but who praised the British socialite as an inspiration for her career. The office assistant, Cimberly Espinosa, worked briefly for Epstein’s legal team in 1996 before working as Maxwell’s executive assistant from 1996-2002.

In a civil lawsuit unconnected to Maxwell’s criminal case, Jennifer Araoz, another Epstein accuser, named Espinosa as a defendant. Araoz accused Espinosa of scheduling visits where Epstein had sexual contact with her when she was 14 and 15 years old; Espinosa has denied wrongdoing.

Espinosa testified that almost all of her work took place in Epstein’s office in midtown Manhattan, where she said the financier frequently had teenage girls visit. Espinosa  never witnessed any sexual abuse while in that role, she said, and none of the accusers in Maxwell’s trial said they were sexually abused at the midtown office.

Much of Maxwell’s work involved managing Epstein’s properties, according to Espinosa, including shipping palm trees and sand to his private island in the US Virgin Islands because “he wanted more sand on the beach.” Espinosa gushed about Maxwell, who she said inspired her to become the professional executive assistant she is today. Espinosa also vacationed in Maxwell’s London townhouse as late as 2019, she said.

Epstein and Maxwell appeared to be in a relationship in the early years of Espinosa’s role working for Maxwell, she testified, but their relationship transitioned into a more professional one. Over time, Espinosa said Epstein and Maxwell drifted apart.

“They just kind of went their separate ways,” Espinosa said.