Maxwell Goes into Hiding After Epstein's Death
Following Epstein's death in custody on August 10, 2019, Ghislaine Maxwell disappears from public view and goes into hiding, evading media and law enforcement for over a year before her arrest in New Hampshire in July 2020.
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Event Details
Within days of Jeffrey Epstein’s death in federal custody on August 10, 2019, Ghislaine Maxwell dropped from public view. A woman who had spent decades as a fixture of elite social events in New York, London, and globally became entirely untrackable.
Maxwell’s whereabouts were a subject of intense speculation and reporting throughout late 2019 and 2020. She was reportedly seen at a McDonald’s restaurant in rural Massachusetts, leading to a photograph and viral publicity. Rumors placed her in various locations internationally.
Prosecutors in the SDNY were building a criminal case against Maxwell during this period. Maxwell’s legal team was in contact with prosecutors, but she did not voluntarily present herself.
She was ultimately arrested on July 2, 2020, when FBI agents tracked her to a 156-acre property in Bradford, New Hampshire, where she had been living under the name of a trust. She was taken into custody and charged with sex trafficking and related offenses.
Maxwell’s period of apparent hiding raised questions about whether she believed she would be charged — and about whether any powerful individuals or networks were facilitating her concealment. None of these questions have been conclusively answered publicly.