The sex-trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former romantic partner and employee, got underway in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday with opening statements and testimony from one of the pilots who flew Mr. Epstein’s private planes.
In the coming weeks, jurors are expected to hear testimony from four women who prosecutors said were abused as teenagers by Mr. Epstein.
Ms. Maxwell, the daughter of a British media mogul, faces six counts, stemming from what prosecutors say was her role in the sexual exploitation of the women. The charges include enticing a minor to travel to engage in criminal sexual activity and transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Here are some takeaways from the first day of the trial:
The jury will hear the story of Jane, who was 14 when she met Mr. Epstein.
In describing how evidence would show that Ms. Maxwell helped Mr. Epstein traffic and sexually abuse teenage girls, a prosecutor sketched out the story of one accuser referred to only by a first name, Jane.
Jane met Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell in 1994, the prosecutor, Lara Pomerantz, told jurors: a seemingly innocent encounter that began at a picnic table with the realization that the two adults and the teenage girl all lived in Palm Beach, Fla. It ended with Jane providing her phone number.
That was the “beginning of a nightmare that would last for years,” Ms. Pomerantz said. She said that Ms. Maxwell helped win Jane’s trust with shopping trips and “helped normalize abusive sexual conduct” at the hands of Mr. Epstein.
The jury would hear directly from Jane and from three other women who had similar experiences as teenage girls, the prosecutor said.
The defense will try to show that the four accusers’ memories are unreliable.
A few minutes later, however, a defense lawyer, Bobbi C. Sternheim, told jurors that recollections from witnesses like Jane, who are expected to testify under oath about Mr. Epstein’s abuse, were not to be trusted.
She suggested the accusers had “unreliable and suspect” memories that could have been “corrupted” over the years or “contaminated” by “constant media reports.” She also suggested the accusers were motivated by a desire to win “a big jackpot of money” from a possible civil action against Mr. Epstein’s estate.
“Each accuser’s story is thin,” she told jurors. “They have been impacted by lawyers, by media, by things they have read and things they have heard and by money, big bucks.”
Understand the Ghislaine Maxwell Trial
An Epstein confidant. Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of a British media mogul and once a fixture in New York’s social scene, was a longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself after his arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
Another defense strategy will be to shift blame to Mr. Epstein.
Ms. Sternheim painted Ms. Maxwell as a “scapegoat” who is on trial only because Mr. Epstein had killed himself in a federal jail. That suicide, she told jurors, left “a gaping hole in the pursuit of justice” for many people. Ms. Maxwell is “filling that hole,” Ms. Sternheim added. “Filling that empty chair.”
“Ever since Eve was accused of tempting Adam with the apple,” she said, “women have been blamed for the bad behavior of men.”
The prosecution used one of Mr. Epstein’s pilots to set the scene for jurors.
The first witness for the prosecution was not one of the accusers but a private pilot: Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr., who had worked for Mr. Epstein from 1991 to 2019.
Mr. Visoski described, in broad strokes, the role Ms. Maxwell played in managing Mr. Epstein’s households and properties, describing their relationship as “couple-ish.” Guided by photographs presented as evidence, Mr. Visoski also described ferrying Mr. Epstein and his guests to various luxury residences in New York City; Paris; the U.S. Virgin Islands; Palm Beach, Fla.; and Santa Fe, N.M.
“Pretty much every four days we were on the road flying somewhere,” he said. Mr. Visoski said he did not always know precisely who was flying on Mr. Epstein’s planes with him.
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