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A woman testified at the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell on Tuesday that she was just 14 years old when the British socialite began arranging for her to give massages to Jeffrey Epstein, which always ended in sexual activity.
The woman, identified only as "Carolyn," said she was usually paid $300 after the encounters with Epstein, often by Maxwell herself.
Maxwell, 59, is accused of grooming underage girls to be exploited by her long-time partner Epstein, a wealthy American financier who killed himself in jail two years ago while awaiting trial.
She has pleaded not guilty to six counts of enticing and transporting minors for sex.
Carolyn, voice trembling at times, told the jury in a Manhattan courtroom about her difficult upbringing and her struggles with drugs.
"My mom was an alcoholic and drug addict," she said.
Carolyn said she dropped out of school after the 7th grade, when she would have been about 13 years old, and was raped and molested by her grandfather when she was a child.
Unlike two previous accusers who have taken the witness stand, she said she was introduced to Epstein not by Maxwell but by another girl, Virginia Roberts, whom she knew through her then-boyfriend.
Roberts, also known as Virginia Giuffre, is not expected to testify during Maxwell's trial but has gone public with her accusations of sexual abuse by Epstein.
"Virginia asked me if I wanted to make money," Carolyn said.
Roberts told her she could take her to meet a "wealthy friend," to whom Carolyn could provide massages, she said.
Carolyn said the first time she went to Epstein's residence in Palm Beach, Florida, she was accompanied by Roberts.
"We were greeted by Ms Maxwell," she said, and taken to a bathroom where there was a massage table.
After Epstein brushed his teeth, he lay "face down on the massage table," Carolyn said. Epstein and Roberts had sex while Carolyn was in the room, she said.
'I became too old'
Carolyn said she returned to Epstein's Palm Beach home more than 100 times when she was between 14 and 18 years old.
She said the visits would always begin with a massage, but "something sexual happened every single time."
Carolyn said she went to Epstein's every week, sometimes two or three times a week, and Maxwell played an active role.
"Maxwell would call and set up an appointment time... for like the first year," she said.
"I got paid $300" for every visit, Carolyn said.
On one occasion, she said, Maxwell saw her naked, touched her breasts and told her she had a "great body."
Carolyn was asked by the prosecutor why she continued to go to Epstein's and what she did with the money.
"I was buying drugs," she said. "Marijuana, cocaine."
Carolyn said Epstein and Maxwell knew she was underage because she had told them she was 14 years old.
She said she stopped going when she was 18 "because I became too old."
Carolyn told the jury that she had received between $1 million to $3 million from the Epstein victims fund.
Maxwell lawyer Jeffrey Pagliuca, in his cross-examination, tried to poke holes in Carolyn's testimony, pointing out contradictions between statements she gave to the FBI in 2007 and in prior civil lawsuits compared with those from the most recent case, which earned her money from the Epstein fund.
He also noted that Maxwell had not figured prominently in her older testimony.
A woman identified by the pseudonym "Jane" testified last week that she was also 14 when Epstein started sexually abusing her. Jane said Maxwell was sometimes present and even participated.
A second woman identified as "Kate" took the witness stand on Monday and accused Maxwell of grooming her to engage in sexual activity with Epstein.
Maxwell, the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, faces an effective life sentence if convicted.
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NASA's latest astronaut trainees are already dreaming of the Moon
December 08, 2021
As a former national team cyclist who'd fix her own bikes, and before that as a child helping out on her family's cattle farm, NASA trainee astronaut Christina Birch has plenty of experience working with her hands.
With America's sights now set on returning to the Moon -- this time establishing long-term habitats -- Birch is dreaming big: "If I could assist the mission in any way, by helping build something on the Moon, that would be super cool," she told AFP.
The 35-year-old is one of ten new recruits announced by the US space agency this week, the latest members of what it calls the "Artemis generation," named for the Artemis program to put American boots on lunar soil later this decade, and later on to Mars.
Selected from a competitive field of 12,000 applicants, their diverse profiles have been picked with the goal of accomplishing humankind's toughest exploration missions to date.
Among them are high-level scientists. Chris Williams, 38, is a medical physicist and assistant professor at Harvard, whose research focused on developing image guidance techniques for cancer treatments.
"I was very inspired by the Moon missions as a kid, and so NASA's Artemis program to go back to the Moon in a sustainable way is something that I'm really passionate about," he said in a video call.
Birch holds a doctorate in biological engineering from MIT. Her dreams of space travel were inspired by the work she was doing in her own laboratory.
"It probably wasn't until I was working in the lab, you know, as a bio engineer, doing these experiments with cells and proteins, and I saw that similar experiments are being done aboard the space station. And I said, 'Well, hey, I've got those skills!'"
Another feather in her cap: She's an ex-track cyclist on the US team, who qualified for the Olympics and has won World Cup medals in the team pursuit and Madison race.
"I love having a training plan or regimen, and working towards a big goal," she explained.
However, unlike the many experienced pilots chosen, she has no flying experience and looks forward to jet training.
"The fastest I've gone is on the Velodrome on the track, self-propelled," she said.
'Exciting new adventure'
NASA is targeting a crewed landing on the Moon in 2025.
Unlike the Apollo era, the space agency will carry out the mission partly with the help of private companies, including SpaceX who will operate the lander vehicle.
In a sign of the times, one of the future astronauts is returning to NASA from a stint at Elon Musk's company, which he joined in 2018.
Physician Anil Menon, who at 45 is the oldest of the astronaut class of 2021, was SpaceX's first flight surgeon, having previously fulfilled the same role for NASA, overseeing the health of astronauts on missions.
It was Menon, who got selected after his fifth time applying, who pulled Frenchman Thomas Pesquet out from his Dragon capsule when it splashed down in November after the crew had spent six months in space.
"It will be incredible to be able to physically experience it myself," he said.
In addition to contributing to medical research, "I think that medical knowledge is going to keep people healthy and safe," he said.
Born to parents from India and Ukraine, he is also used to working under difficult emergency conditions. In 2010, he went to Haiti to help after a devastating earthquake.
Then in 2015, he landed in Nepal by chance minutes before a massive earthquake, and once again helped treat patients flocking to local clinics.
In January the new recruits will report at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where they will begin two years of intensive training.
They will learn how to operate and maintain the International Space Station, carry out spacewalks, develop robotics skills, safely operate a T-38 training jet, and learn Russian to communicate with their counterparts.
"It'll be a big change for our families, but it's an exciting new adventure," said Williams.
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Ted Cruz has never recouped $500,000 he loaned his first campaign -- and now he’s working to overturn the law that’s blocked him
December 08, 2021
Locked in an expensive Republican primary for U.S. senator against a wealthy, better-known opponent, Ted Cruz loaned his campaign over $1 million in 2012.
The cash helped him defeat Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a runoff that essentially secured Cruz a seat in the Senate. But it came at a personal financial cost: Cruz has never been able to recoup $545,000 of that loan, according to a Federal Election Commission report.
A 2002 law bans victorious federal candidates from using more than $250,000 raised after an election to pay back loans they gave their own campaigns prior to Election Day. Congress passed it to help prevent the appearance of quid pro quo corruption. The idea behind the limit is that money collected after an election is no longer helping a candidate win office. Instead, the funds go to the electee’s pocket.
Cruz recouped a good chunk of that 2012 loan from money received before Election Day. But when Cruz’s campaign determined that the loans could not be fully repaid due to the regulations, it began exploring ways to challenge the law, according to a May 2020 deposition of Cabell Hobbs, Ted Cruz Victory Committee treasurer.
READ: 'Unprecedented': Ted Cruz accused of 'undermining' America's national security
Next month, his campaign’s lawsuit against the FEC will reach the Supreme Court. Cruz’s campaign lawyers are expected to argue the limit is unconstitutional, arbitrarily limits political speech and deters candidates from loaning money to their campaigns.
“The federal government’s restrictions on a candidate’s ability to loan his own money to his own campaign violate the First Amendment,” a Cruz spokesperson told The Texas Tribune in an email. “Senator Cruz seeks to vindicate his rights under the First Amendment and the rights of all those who would seek election to federal office.”
It’s unclear whether Cruz will ever get his money back, even if he wins his case. In 2015, after his campaign was audited by the FEC, Cruz’s campaign converted the existing unpaid loans into a contribution, as required by law. But he still lists the loans as an asset in his most recent Senate financial disclosure, which could be a sign he hopes to eventually get the money back. Cruz’s office did not respond to questions about his plans for the loan.
The lawsuit now pending before the Supreme Court is actually about a separate loan. One day before he won reelection in 2018, Cruz loaned his campaign $260,000 — intentionally establishing the groundwork to sue to overturn the rule and raise money to recover the $10,000 that goes over the cap of $250,000.
READ: Ted Cruz takes offense at The Daily Show mocking his Yiddish -- and it backfires spectacularly
“The money they contribute is literally going into Ted Cruz’s bank account,” said Seth Nesin, the FEC’s former lead attorney on this case who left the agency in August after 13 years. “That’s what really makes it seem, to at least me and some other people, quite sketchy.”
Cruz’s legal fight is a new front in a longtime effort by conservatives to peel back federal campaign finance rules they argue are antithetical to free speech. If the Supreme Court affirms lower courts’ rulings in Cruz’s favor, the case would mark another blow to federal campaign finance laws under Chief Justice John Roberts.
In 2010’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court effectively allowed unions and corporations to spend as much as they like on independent political broadcasts in candidate elections. Campaign spending by outside groups more than doubled in the decision’s wake, according to a 2015 analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. In 2014’s McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can’t cap the amount of money people donate to federal candidates in the aggregate every two years.
But this case goes a step further, according to some critics of Cruz’s lawsuit, because the money raised after the election would replenish politicians’ personal funds — not their campaigns.
READ: Neurologist explains why it’s hard to look at Ted Cruz’s creepy 'unsettling' face
If the Supreme Court struck down the limit, Tara Malloy, senior director for appellate litigation and strategy at the Campaign Legal Center, said the effect would be bad but “fairly narrow.”
“It’s just common sense that when an election is over, a contributor is not giving money to fund election speech anymore. At most, they are trying to associate themselves to the candidate,” said Malloy, whose group filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the FEC in the Supreme Court case. “That money that’s being raised will directly enrich the candidate in a way that almost no other campaign contribution will.”
In a motion filed in July, the FEC pointed to a recent study of U.S. congressional campaigns from 1983-2018 by two finance professors at universities in France and Switzerland. The study found that nearly half of all political campaigns rely on debt in some form. Officeholders in debt are more likely to change their votes to benefit PACs making post-election campaign contributions, according to the study.
But conservatives have long argued in court that campaign contributions amount to political speech, which shouldn’t be restricted.
In an amicus curiae brief filed in August, the nonprofit Institute for Free Speech argued that the limit hinders political speech by disincentivizing candidates from loaning money to their campaigns.
“Contributions to a political campaign promote more expenditures by that campaign, which results in more political speech,” wrote Donald A. Daugherty for the Institute for Free Speech.
FEC lawyers also argue that striking down the limit would allow candidates to engage further in “debt stacking,” a loophole where donors avoid contribution limits by giving money to previous campaigns with existing debts.
“If there were no Loan Repayment Limit now, a contributor that had not previously given to Senator Cruz could donate $16,000 today: the maximum $5,000 to his 2012 primary and general campaigns… an additional $5,400 to his 2018 campaigns… and another $5,600 to his 2024 campaigns. And Senator Cruz would be able to make yet another loan to his 2024 campaign to keep the cycle going,” the FEC wrote.
But Judge Neomi Rao — appointed by former President Donald Trump to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — wrote in June that because the government did not sufficiently prove how the law prevents corruption, the limit “runs afoul of the First Amendment.”
Lawyers representing Ted Cruz for Senate have until Dec. 15 to file their brief in the case. Oral arguments are Jan. 19. If the limit is considered unconstitutional, future candidates could theoretically repay loans of infinite amounts with post-election contributions.
Nesin fears that the “very hostile court to campaign finance laws” may strike down the limit.
“I think it’s very unlikely that the Supreme Court will find the FEC on the merits of the case,” Nesin said. “Just because of who is on the Supreme Court, the FEC doesn’t win anything.”
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