Closing arguments are a chance to tie the case together or pick it apart.

 

Closing arguments in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial could last most of the day on Monday — a marathon court session in which lawyers for both sides seek to weave a persuasive narrative from the evidence presented at trial.

In contrast with opening statements, which in federal court in Manhattan tend to be short, closing arguments can stretch for hours. Prosecutors in Ms. Maxwell’s case will have two and a half hours on Monday morning to address the jury, plus 35 minutes reserved for a rebuttal of the defense’s argument.

Throughout Ms. Maxwell’s three-week trial, the jury has been presented with pieces of evidence and testimony, sometimes without much explanation: Bank records showing millions of dollars transferred between entities tied to Mr. Epstein and accounts tied to Ms. Maxwell. Birth certificates for Ms. Maxwell’s accusers. Names of other women who worked for Mr. Epstein.

Closing arguments are when prosecutors and the defense team will try to make sense of those disparate elements for the jury.

Judge Alison J. Nathan instructed jurors at the outset of the trial on Nov. 29 that opening statements are meant to give “an idea in advance” of the evidence that jurors should expect to hear from witnesses and see in exhibits at trial. The closing arguments, Judge Nathan said, will “summarize and interpret the evidence.”

During opening statements on Nov. 29, Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers sought to plant a seed of skepticism, distancing their client from Mr. Epstein and saying the government would not have the hard evidence — emails, phone records, or photographs — to back up the accusers’ accounts.

That effort continued through the trial, as her lawyers questioned witnesses’ memories and motives — asking about settlement payments made to accusers, for example, or raising the possibility that the accusers’ stories were embellished or altered with time.

The defense is likely to pull those points together in its closing, and raise questions about whether Ms. Maxwell was aware of Mr. Epstein’s behavior.

In a charging conference for the case on Saturday — in which the judge and lawyers for both sides review plans for the closing arguments and jury instructions — a prosecutor, Maurene Comey, asked for more than two hours for their closing, noting the government’s case had wrapped up in half the expected time.

“We did, I will note, streamline our case significantly,” Ms. Comey said, “and there were a number of exhibits that were not published to the jury, and I think we were explicitly told, that’s for closing.”

Ms. Comey described the task as “cumbersome,” because “there is more work to be done connecting up the paper exhibits that we were not able to show to the jury.”

Judge Nathan agreed.