After the government’s closing argument methodically wove together the complex case against Ms. Maxwell, a defense lawyer focused on what she said prosecutors had failed to present.
“How vivid a memory seems does not make it more accurate,” Ms. Menninger said.
Ms. Menninger attacked the credibility of other government witnesses as well. She described one witness — a former employee who described Ms. Maxwell as the “lady of the house” who set the rules for Mr. Epstein’s home — as “a two-time burglar, obviously with an ax to grind.”
She pointed to the felony convictions and drug use of another witness, the former boyfriend of one of the accusers.
Ms. Menninger also pushed back sharply against prosecutors’ contention — in opening statements and in closing arguments — that Ms. Maxwell’s participation in Mr. Epstein’s scheme was motivated by money and maintaining her luxurious lifestyle.
A prosecutor earlier in the day cited bank records that showed Mr. Epstein transferred $30.7 million to Ms. Maxwell between 1999 and 2007, which includes some of the years in which she has been charged with helping him to recruit, groom, and sexually abuse young teenagers.
“The government makes a big show of these big dollar transfers,” Ms. Menninger said. “That is some thin testimony,” she continued.
She said the prosecution was asking the jury to speculate. “Speculation is not evidence,” Ms. Menninger said, adding it was not even clear that Ms. Maxwell “knew that these transfers were being made in her name.”
Concluding the government’s closing argument in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell on Monday, a federal prosecutor sought to upend the arguments made by Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers, from their opening words to the jury to their questioning of government witnesses.
The prosecutor, Alison Moe, first recalled the defense’s opening statement, in which they suggested that Ms. Maxwell was “being blamed for something she didn’t do.” Ms. Moe said the evidence at trial showed that Ms. Maxwell “made her own choices.”
Ms. Moe also quoted a line from the defense’s opening statement, in which they described the case as being about “manipulation, money and memory,” a reference to what Ms. Maxwell’s lawyers said were the motives and flaws of the four women whose allegations formed the backbone of the government’s case.
“You know what? Defense counsel was exactly right,” Ms. Moe said. “This case was exactly about manipulation,” she said. Ms. Maxwell, she said, made the girls believe she was their friend “all so they could be molested by a middle-aged man.”
The case was “absolutely about money,” Ms. Moe said. “The evidence shows you that Maxwell and Epstein were a wealthy couple who used their privilege to prey on girls” from vulnerable backgrounds. She contrasted the hundreds of dollars one accuser got for her visits to Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach home with the $30 million Ms. Maxwell got from entities tied to Mr. Epstein.
Finally, Ms. Moe addressed the question of memory, arguing that the defense had tried to undermine the testimony of the accusers who testified, in part by plucking old statements out of context and calling witnesses who were “sideshows” and “distractions.”
The defense, Ms. Moe said, has tried to show that the accusers got it wrong. “Common sense tells you that this just can’t be true,” Ms. Moe said. “They aren’t all suffering from the same mass delusion.”
Earlier in the two-hour argument, which was shorter than initially forecast, Ms. Moe homed in on a defense witness who had been called to contradict the testimony of one of Ms. Maxwell’s accusers.
The witness, Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former girlfriend of Mr. Epstein who was subpoenaed by the defense to testify, told the jury that she never took part in sexualized massages with Jane and other women. The defense also subpoenaed a woman with the first name Michelle but she did not appear in court.
Ms. Moe noted that defense lawyers never showed Jane photographs of the two women, and she asserted the defense team knew Eva was not among the women Jane had named. “They left it really vague on purpose,” Ms. Moe said.
“Calling these women to testify is completely meaningless,” Ms. Moe said, calling it “a total sideshow.” She urged the jury not to be distracted.
At the end of her argument, Ms. Moe urged the jury again to use their common sense. “Ghislaine Maxwell sexually exploited young girls,” she said. “She trafficked underage girls for sex.”