Jailed Ghislaine Maxwell is in quarantine after guard at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center tests positive for COVID-19
Ghislaine Maxwell is in quarantine after a guard working near her cell inside a Brooklyn jail tested positive for coronavirus, court filings revealed on Monday.
The 58-year-old British socialite, the former girlfriend and accused 'madam' of Jeffrey Epstein, has been detained in the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Sunset Park, since July, ahead of her July 14 trial.
Maxwell has been charged with six federal counts including enticement of minors, sex trafficking, and perjury.
She tested negative for COVID-19 on November 18, and is showing no symptoms, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey in a letter to Judge Alison Nathan.
Ghislaine Maxwell, pictured in 2013, has tested negative for COVID but is in quarantine
Maxwell is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Maxwell's former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in jail last year awaiting trial
The letter was filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
She will remain in quarantine at the MDC for 14 days, and will only be allowed out of her cell three times a week, for 30 minutes at a time.
Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI director James Comey, is prosecuting
Maxwell's defense team has argued pandemic protocols at MDC, as well as special measures to prevent her from killing herself like Epstein, have made it difficult for her to prepare a defense.
She is allowed to talk to her lawyers on the phone every day for up to three hours and continue to use a laptop provided by the government for 13 hours a day to review discovery, the letter says.
Comey wrote that Maxwell had more privileges than other inmates, even in quarantine.
'As was the case three months ago, the defendant continues to have more time to review her discovery than any other inmate at the MDC, even while in quarantine,' Comey wrote.
'The defendant also has as much, if not more, time as any other MDC inmate to communicate with her attorneys, even while in quarantine.'
Maxwell is depicted during her July 14 appearance via video-link in Manhattan federal court
Cells within the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, in the Special Housing Unit
A court worker is seen disinfecting the Manhattan courthouse in July ahead of arraignment
The pandemic has ushered in lockdowns at federal jails across the country since early March.
Attorney visits have recently resumed, but family visits remain off-limits.
The MDC is being sued for its response to the pandemic. A report by a Justice Department watchdog found that the true extent of the COVID outbreak at MDC in the early months of the pandemic is unknown because the jail failed to test inmates or staff in meaningful numbers.
Maxwell has pleaded not guilty.
The latest legal battle in her case has revolved around whether to release a 2016 deposition in which she shared details on her 'own sexual activity' and the 'sexual activities of others,' according to filings.
Her lawyers argue the details, if made public, would harm her right to a fair trial.