Ghislaine Maxwell and Elizabeth Holmes on Trial

Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado, who's covering the trial. Patty. For those who don't know, tell us who Glaine Maxwell is. Gleam Maxwell is a British socialite, Oxford educated born in Paris, daughter of former British publishing

baron Sir Robert Maxwell. She is his youngest child and she's allegedly was a former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein's and the government argues that Maxwell conspired with Epstein in the six trafficking scheme, accused of alluring underage girls to Epstein's so he could sexually abuse them, and also for participating some of the abuse. The defense she's been mounting all the lawyers, all the motions is expensive. How much money

does she have now? It's about two million, and the government has previously alleged that she got twenty million was transferred from accounts tied to Epstein to her accounts offshore accounts, and so the government says that she's got at least twenty million dollars, which is the reason why they said she had the money and the ability to flee. She has a French passport and if she fled to France,

they don't extradsee. So she's been in custody since she was arrested in July of So, looking at the prosecution's case, what is the prosecution expected to present? But the government already promised they're going to have four They were underage women under the law that it was illegal for Epstein to have sex with them at the time he sexually abused them. They're going to have these four underage women who are now older. Some of the accuse went back as far as when one of the accusers was about

thirteen or fourteen years old. So they're going to call these victims who they say are victims. Maxwell wanted to argue they're not victims, and they should just be called accusers. So the government is going to call these four people to testify, including some of them may testify under pseudonyms or nicknames because some of the testimony is incredibly embarrassing and it happened to them when they were younger. What

other witnesses are we likely to see? They've also promised that they're going to call other witnesses who may have been present or known about the Epstein sex trafficking. So it sounds like what the government wants to do is call additional victims, although it's not clear yet. Also, there was a two thousand eight search by Palm Beach Police and they went to Epstein's home and they seized evidence, including photographs as well as a massage table. There's apparently

some sex toys. Also, interestingly, there's been discussion of seizure. Somehow the government got ahold of what's called Epstein's Little Black Book, and it's an addressed book with names and telephone numbers. But there's apparently also another book tied to going Maxwell. It's some kind of addressed book and one of these books the government has says they have evidence that include the names of these underaged young women, as

well as telephone numbers for their parents. So I guess the idea is they were so young they didn't have cell phones at the time, and their moms or dads that so there was contact information for their parents in these phone books. And there's also listings about names under massages for these girls allegedly, So the judge hasn't ruled on how much evidence the government's going to be allowed

to show the jury. Of course, the defenses are doing vociferously than strongly that some of this information is too prejudicial and can't be tied to Maxwell. Are there emails or texts that are tied to her? Yes? There apparently are also email exchanged between Epstein and Maxwell. We know of at least one of them that came out as

part of evidence in Virginia. Guffre is that Epstein Maxwell at user who sued Maxwell for defamation, and they settled the lawsuit, but the documents tied to that later got unsealed, and so one of them is an email that Epstein and Max all exchange that showed they were still in contact after he had his non prosecution deal with federal prosecutors in two thousand eight, and basically Epstein is telling Maxwell to keep your chin up and don't act like

a criminal. So we definitely have seen some emails, and the government has promised more evidence. The defense lawyer said he intends to ask the alleged victims why they failed to come forward sooner, if substance abuse impaired their memories, and also wants to question them about their sexual behavior. Those sounds like questions from years ago, before the Me Too movement, blaming the victim. You got it there. I

agree with you. I've covered courts for years now, and I cover State Court in Brooklyn, and there were many occasions that caused outrage back then where defense lawyers wanted to question a witness. I can remember one of prostitute. She had witnessed a murder or an attempted murder, and the lawyer wanted to question her about her sex life

and her sex history. So that was not allowed and that caused If you're at least twenty years ago in Brooklyn State Supreme Court, it's hard to believe it's and we're having this discussion again. The judge, it's unclear what she has ruled. She had an in camera hearing with the lawyers about that testimony and how much the defense is going to be allowed to raise the sexual background

of these complaining witnesses, these four women. I mean, you could argue it's not out of the realm of the possible that even if someone is sexually active, they can still be victimized by someone else and it's still going to be a crime. Now, I don't know whether that's to raise reasonable doubt. Seems like that's what the defense is trying to do, and it's unclear that's still on the table, and the judge hasn't officially said what her ruling is on that. Besides attacking the victims, are trying

to discredit them. Do you have a sense of what the defense is going to be. It sounds like the defense there's kind of a hodgepodge of things. But there was a defense filing a couple of weeks ago which was they'd like to call these two experts their forensic psychiatrists. Is one of them is an expert on false memory, and it's a woman who testified at Harvey Weinstein's trial that people can have false memories of some traumatic event

like a sexual assault. And she testified at Harvey Weinstein's trial that maybe these women were making up these stories and the jury did believe it and rejected that and convicted Harvey Weinstein. The prosecution says that this doctor and this expert has never been allowed to testify in federal court. That's also a pending request. They also want to call an expert that says there's no such thing as grooming

in a sexual abuse case. You know, we've heard, now, I guess in the common nomenclature that someone was being groomed for abuse by getting presents and gifts and being enticed. And I guess the defense is trying to blunt that with suggesting there is no such thing as grooming. This is just a concoctive theory or concoctive terminology. It's kind of psycho babble, and that it's really just being nice can be misinterpreted as grooming. So they were trying to

keep the testimony about grooming out of the case. It sounds like the judges willing and favor the government and

not allowing this claim that grooming doesn't exist. They're also arguing that Epstein had the halo effect, and they argue that they want to have an expert that he had a personality trait he was able to exploit the halo effect, like surrounded by this aura of wonderfulness that automatically attracted people to him, and that people were attracted to his wealth, some people seeking some of the wealth that he had

and his aura of attractiveness, if you will. It sounds like the defense wants to argue that, you know, maybe perhaps Maxwell fell into that lore of Epstein's halo effect and that she too came under his spell. So is there any chance that she'll take the stand in her own defense. I don't think so, mainly because she's are also charged with perjury and she's charged with wine under oath during depositions she gave in that Virginia Gufrey defamation lawsuit.

So grew Fris lawyers David Boy's question x well, and the government says that based on her answers claiming that she didn't know anything about sexualized massages involving teenage girls under the age of consent, that she was lying, and so they charged her with two counts of perjury. So the judge has ruled that those perjury counts will be tried later, and so Maxwell would be opening herself up to basically getting confronted about whether or not those were

wise before that perjury case can go forward. I don't think her lawyers want to put her in that position. So how does she appear You've been sitting through jury selection. How does she appear in the courtroom? Well, it's been an interesting transformation. I mean we all had seen her with that great short Bob's black haircut, you know, shining black hair, dangling earring, dressed at gala's and going to

events smiling, you know, as a British socialite. She's even photographed going to the Ascot Races, the Royal Ascot Races with Prince Andrew in a giant hat and beautiful clothes. She came to court earlier this year and she was just you know, drawn out, pale, wearing prison guard like prison fatigues, and she was shackled like Marley's Ghost, wearing a chain around her waist and she was handcuffed to that chain, and then she had shackles around her ankles.

The first day she came in for the hearings this week, they started individual questioning of jurors. She was wearing a black turtleneck and a pair of gray slacks and like black ballet flats. She had a huge smile on her face and she hugged all of her lawyers and seem very chipper and happy, and she's been very animated. She's also been irritated, apparently by the court artists. So she has turned around and they have, you know, court sketch artists,

because photography is not allowed in federal court. So there's these professional artists that come to court and they draw the scene, and they may draw the witness that they draw the descendants, and they draw the judge. In this case, they're not going to be allowed to draw some of these witnesses, these women accusers. But Maxwell seemed irritated. And I was sitting next to one of the court artists and Maxwell shot a look at me and then went

over and started scribbling madly on her pad. She had like a notepad, so she was drawing the court artists as they drew her. And she looked very fierce. Oh, I guess everyone deals with it in their own way of the pressures of being on trial. How is jury selection been going, What kinds of concerns has the judge been addressing. The judge has basically tried to find out what they know about the f Stein case and what do they know about Maxwell if they seen the Netflix series.

You know, I think there's been three different up for a television series. Of books have been written about this. The Miami Harold reporter Julie Brown investigated it for The Miami Harold into the multi part series. She wrote a book that just come out. So the judge needs to find out what they know about Epstein Maxwell case, and they have any biases or prejudice based on what they've

known or read. And so there was even a guy today we had that actually met Epstein, which seems like if you've got a jury that comes from the southern district of New York's five Counties, which includes Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester, Putnam and Rockland County, you would think that somebody in Manhattan in all these decades where Epstein lived might have had some interactions with him. I've certainly covered trials since the descendants, neighbors, you know, show up on the jury

or something. But in this case, there was only one guy out of dozens of people interviewed, and he said he had had a business feeling with Epstein, who was an investor in his fund, and that he met Epstein once, very briefly for thirty seconds. So um, the judge asked, having met Epstein, did that caused him to follow the case more closely, which he said yes, So he was

actually excused our opening statements on Monday. No. Actually, they went through questionnaire with like about six hundred people that they summoned. Of those six hundred, they brought in two hundred thirty one that qualified based on their answers, there was nothing really apparent that you know, disqualified them from sitting.

And then the judge interviewed uh, almost sixty people starting on Monday, and she's been doing whole day sessions of nine hours at a time interviewing, so she's got about sixty and she's allowing the lawyers they know who these potential jurors are, and they have the names, they're going to be allowed to see if there's any conflict or they have any objection students people. So she's giving them time him to do the research and figure out who they want on the jury, and they're going to actually

come into court on November twenty nine. They're gonna pick the jury and do peremptory challenges and they're going to pick a jury of twelve and six alternates on and then they're going to do opening statements. So, and the judge herself has made some news recently. Yeah, it was kind of surprising. Uh, she was very corey about it.

But she announced everyone after it came out in the New York Times that Senator Charles Schimmer was recommending her to be on the federal appeals court called the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. So she told everyone she wanted to give them comfort that she intended to stay with the case and keep the case till it was done.

And we have had judges in the past that have kept cases, like Denny Chin, federal judge in the Southern District, and he got nominated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals while he still had the made Off Turning made off case, so he kept it even after he was on the Circuit. Thanks for being the Bloomberg Gloss Show, Patty.

That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado. The prosecution is wrapping up its case against Elizabeth Holmes, arguing that Holmes was remarkably deceptive and building blood testing start up there a nose into a nine billion dollar company, dazzling partners and investors with the expectation they would profit from a revolution in healthcare, even though she knew her blood analyzers were

failed technology. Holmes is now at the point in the trial where she'll have to decide whether she'll testify in her own defense. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Joel Rosenblatt, who's been covering the trial. During the prosecution's case, what have jurors been learning about theorophns? What are the big takeaways?

A big take leader a number of recurring themes that the prosecution has just kind of hammered away at One would be former THEOS employees, including the highest level lab director, having deep misgivings about the accuracy of fairness blood testing machines, raising those concerns to Elizabeth Homes and eventually being pressured to kind of find a way around the results, and eventually, because of those misgivings, because they so deeply offended, these

employees sense of scientific integrity, you know, their integrity as scientists, but also their own personal morality, quitting the company. Oftentimes they're not lasting more than a year or so, but very committed, high level, very highly educated employees, just not wanting to stay, unable to stay. That was kind of

the first piece of what they've heard. Then the prosecution moved into investors and how investors were misled by Elizabeth Holmes about the accuracy, which you know from the previous testimony that just described you knew wasn't there. And then also the work that she was doing with pharmaceutical company. So early on, Saranos did indeed have some contracts with pharmaceutical companies who were interested in her blood analyzer, but eventually they didn't see the results that they thought were

accurate enough for them to continue that relationship. What George have seen is that in some instances Elizabeth Holmes presented reports showing that her analyzer was was accurate, but lifting the logos of Fiser, for example, onto this report, and those reports were essentially falsified to show that her analyzer was accurate, when in fact these companies walked away from

it precisely because it wasn't accurate enough. So that's a level of just kind of fabrication, of falsification, of plagiarism that was It's rather blatant, it's pretty shocking. The third one is that is part of her promotion of the analyzer to investors, she told investors and kind of the world rather widely that her blood test analyzer was being had been adopted by the U. S. Military, and was being used on the battlefield in combat on Metavac helicopters.

This was proven to be not true. It was never true. There was one small contract she had with the U. S. Army very early on, but it was never adopted by the military, it was never used in any way in what she described, and this was refuted by no less than former Secretary of Defense James Maddis, who took the stand. So that was another example of just a blatant lie really that she's telling investors, who also factored that heavily in their decision to give her hundreds of millions of dollars.

So it sounds like a pretty powerful prosecution case. So far. Was the defense able to make any inroads with these witnesses. The inroads that they've made have been on cross examination. In my estimation, it's it's been hard to follow. Uh. First of all, it's difficult. It's just difficult to kind of, I think overcome that testimony and where they are. It's been a kind of scatter shot approach. And so now what we've seen is long, long cross examinations that are

beginning to irritate the judge. They're irritating everyone else, including one presumes the jury. And I think it's an effort to draw out the trial, you know, I think the the short answer to your question is the cross examinations have not been particularly effective, at least as far as I can tell. They're hard to follow. Their their scatter shot,

and they're they're long. Has there been any mention of Sonny Belwani and his part in this, Well, Sonny is a co conspirator, He was charged as a co conspirator. Their trials were severed, so he's going to be tried tried separately starting in January. And he comes up a lot. So he's been mentioned a lot. I mean, they were, according to the prosecution, partners in crime here. So he figures,

he figures prominently. It's a kind of careful dance prosecutors have to do there because it's Elizabeth Holmes who's on trial, and they've taken extraordinary efforts to show that while they were co conspirators, that she was in charge. So for the purposes of this trial and trying to get her conviction, they've had to show that she was in charge. And they've raised numerous instances elicited testimony in which former employees or business partners said that in meetings that they both attended,

Elizabeth Holmes was really in charge. You know what the defense is going to be. Did they say they're opening statements what the defense would be? Well, this is the big question war and and we're nearly at the crossroads. The prosecution has said it will rest this week. I'm

not sure if that's going to happen. But your question is the big question, because she indicated before the trial that she may raise a defense pointing to Sunny Baul Wahani as having been so uh psychologically in some instances even physically abusive, that she was in fact controlled by him, that her that his abuse was so so strong and so forceful and so formative that she was essentially doing, you know, the things she's accused of under his control.

So that has not been raised so plainly yet at trial. Before the jury in opening arguments, her lawyer did hint at it that that this relationship she was in a romantic relationship with Sunny while they were both at para nose. He was, he was the president. Lance Wade, her lawyer, indicated in opening arguments that this relationship was one of a number of bad choices that Elizabeth Holmes made, So he has hinted at it. It's just not clear. We just don't know what her defense is going to be yet.

We don't know if she's going to pursue this unprecedented defense to a you know, a white car criminal fraud case. Right, it is unprecedented in this kind of a case. And then we've heard that kind of defense coming from battered women as a self defense, usually to some kind of criminal act, but not in this context. So has the prosecution been anticipating it in any way? Well, yes, I mean the short answer is yes. You can see there

have been kind of preemptive strikes. I think this, this effort that I explained earlier to show that she was in charge, can be seen as a preemptive strike to this type of defense. In other words, if she's in charge and she's running a company, not only is she kind of superior, not only is she Sunny's superior, and she was in fact entitled his superior as chief executive,

but she was running the show. And so the idea is, how could she possibly be so highly functional and so in charge and and yet at the same time being so manipulated by Bye Sonny Bowani. The defense is a is a real stretch because you know, essentially what they have to prove is that she was so under his control that she couldn't tell right from wrong. That's that's what they have to prove. And I think that's a real stretch. She has the benefit of Balwannie not being

in the courtroom, not being on trial with her. As you said, his his trial was severed, so she can say what she wants to and no one will be able to check with him. Well, that's right, That's exactly why the trial was severed, because Sonny Bowani made the point that he can't possibly defend against the government's allegations and hers at the same time. So she has yea wide latitude and lee way to to to blame him

and point to him. She's under oath, right, so if she testifies or whoever testifies on her behalf, she has she does have an expert lined up as a as a potential witness as psychological expert. You know, everybody, everybody who's understand is sworn to tell the truth. So she can say what she wants. But unless she's willing to just lie under oath and risk being in contempt of court. Uh, it has to be truthful. So she's been painted as

very charismatic. I mean, we've all seen the interviews she did. What is she like in the courtroom? Well, in the courtroom, you know, she hasn't had a chance to speak yet, and again it's not clear if she's going to. Most criminal defense players will tell you that they don't want they don't want their defendant to understand. So so she's she hasn't had a chance to speak even if she

wanted to. In the courtroom, she sits perfectly still. She's dressed very well, um, not in the in the black sweater that she wore as CEO, but generally in skirts and dress coats and dressed very carefully conservatively, and she sits remarkably to me, perfectly upright in her chair between her lawyers. Her back doesn't touch the back of her chair, and she's looking just directly at witnesses the whole time, and on Breakes. She's very friendly. I've run into her

numerous times. She's friendly to everybody. She's with her here with her mother every day, her partner, and I believe husband now has oftentimes been here. So she has family here and she's um. She seems retentive and relaxed. And I'll just add that jury consultants I've spoken to have said that in this case, this might be a case where the defendant should testify, just given how dynamic she she is and how she was as as CEO and presumably still is al kind of nimble and intelligent and

carefully spoken she is. I've wondered one thing, she's a new mother. Is the jury aware of that. I have seen press accounts where um, this is kind of explained, UM myself a father. But I haven't seen no indication of Elizabeth Holmes showing the jury that she is a new mother. There is no indication of that to me. I've not seen it. I mean I've personally seen it when the jury is out of the courtroom. In other words, she appears to seems to have a nanny who's here, um,

who's visiting, and she is taking breaks periodically. Um, presumably to either be with her child or just taking the breaks of that a new mom needs um. But I have not seen the jury seeing evidence of that. They will if she takes the standard. Yeah, yeah, and I'll add and all that that Lance Wade, her lawyers had pointed out an opening remarks that she lives, you know, nearby with her husband, and and he did mention her child going to be very interesting if she testifies. Thanks

so much, Joel. That's Joel Rosen Black, Bloomberg Legal Reporter, and that's if the edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, Slash podcast, Blash Law and John Brasso, and you're listening to Bloomberg