Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly wanted to recruit Paris Hilton for Jeffrey Epstein, a former friend of Maxwell’s claims. Journalist Christopher Mason said Maxwell saw a young Hilton during a party and instantly thought the future reality TV star was “perfect for Jeffrey.” Although Mason did not reveal when this alleged encounter happened, the Daily Mail notes it might have been in 2000, when Hilton had just signed with future President Donald Trump’s T Management modeling agency.
Maxwell opened up about the alleged incident in Surviving Jeffrey Epstein, a new documentary set to air on Lifetime on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET. He did not witness the incident first hand though. “A friend of mine was at a party and Ghislaine said: ‘Oh my god, who is that?’ and was looking at this pretty, younger teenage girl,” Mason said in the documentary. Maxwell then asked his friend to introduce them because she would be “perfect for Jeffrey.” The documentary producers then showed a photo from the September 2000 Anand Jon Fashion Show in New York, with Trump, Hilton, and Maxwell. At the time, Hilton was 19 years old.
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Maxwell is accused of being a chief recruiter for Epstein. She is now in custody, with her trial set to start on July 12, 2021. She pleaded not guilty to six charges related to her alleged role in Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring, including transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity and conspiring to entice minors to engage in illegal sex acts. She was also charged with perjury.
The British socialite met Epstein in the early 1990s after she moved to New York following the death of her father, Robert Maxwell. She briefly dated Epstein in the ’90s and continued allegedly working with him. Maxwell has claimed to have had no contact with Epstein in over a decade, but court documents appear to show she did exchange emails with Epstein in 2015. Epstein died in prison on August 2019, and officials have said he took his own life.
In the Lifetime documentary, Mason said people were “puzzled” by the Maxwell and Epstein’s relationship. “The rumors were Ghislaine was scouring New York finding younger girls to go on dates with Jeffrey. At the time it seemed a bit naughty,” Mason said. He went on to say that he once saw Maxwell and Prince Andrew together in Manhattan. “She introduced me to him. He told me he was staying at Jeffrey’s townhouse,” he said. “That fascinated me. It seems like a perfect instance of the kind of people Jeffrey was hanging out with”
The documentary also includes an interview with Dr. Barbara Ziv, a psychiatrist and expert in sexual assault. She believes Maxwell and Epstein had a “mutually parasitic relationship.” She believes there is no evidence “Jeffrey Epstein was capable of having any deep feelings for anyone but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know a good exchange relationship where he finds one.”
