New York(CNN) Ghislaine Maxwell, the confidant of accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, argued in a court filing Friday that she should be granted bail while awaiting trial, claiming she wasn't in "hiding" while under criminal investigation, as prosecutors allege, and hasn't left the country in more than a year.
"She did not flee, but rather left the public eye, for the entirely understandable purpose of protecting herself and those close to her from the crush of media and online attention and its very real harms—those close to her have suffered the loss of jobs, work opportunities, and reputational damage simply for knowing her," her lawyers, Mark S. Cohen and Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, wrote.
They said Maxwell, 58, who has been charged by New York federal prosecutors for her alleged role in conspiring with Epstein to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls as young as 14 between 1994 and 1997, hasn't been in contact with Epstein for more than a decade. Maxwell "vigorously denies the charges, her lawyers wrote Friday, adding that, "sometimes the simplest point is the most critical one: Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein."
A bail hearing in her case is scheduled for July 14.
Rather than being held in jail while she awaits trial, her lawyers suggested she be released on a bail package that would include a $5 million personal recognizance bond, travel restrictions and home confinement with GPS monitoring at a residence in the Southern District of New York. They didn't specify where she might reside.
Prosecutors have said in court filings that Maxwell should be denied bail because she "poses an extreme risk of flight," citing her wealth, foreign citizenship and that she has "effectively been in hiding for approximately a year," since Epstein's arrest in July 2019.
Lawyers for Maxwell disputed that characterization. "Far from 'hiding,' she has lived in the United States since 1991, has litigated civil cases arising from her supposed ties to Epstein, and has not left the country even once since Epstein's arrest a year ago, even though she was aware of the pending, and highly publicized, criminal investigation," they wrote.
They also claimed that Maxwell, through her attorneys, has been in "regular contact" with federal prosecutors from the day following Epstein's arrest through her own arrest earlier this month. A spokesman for the Manhattan US Attorney's office, Nicholas Biase, declined to comment on that claim.
In their brief, Maxwell's attorneys also preview legal arguments they plan to make with regard to the indictment, which center on a non-prosecution agreement Epstein signed with federal prosecutors in Miami in 2007 that appeared to immunize "any potential co-conspirators of Epstein."
When Epstein himself was indicted, New York federal prosecutors said they believed the Florida agreement didn't restrict their office from prosecuting him, but his lawyers argued otherwise. That dispute wasn't resolved because Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial.