Ghislaine Maxwell was quietly moved from a Florida prison to a more comfortable one in Texas this week, as she campaigns for a pardon from President Donald Trump.
Jeffrey Epstein’s associate was serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking in a low security Tallahassee prison but was moved on Thursday to the minimum security Federal Prison Camp Bryan in southeast Texas, The New York Sun first reported.
The move was immediately slammed by Epstein’s victims and their families.
‘This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes,’ thundered sisters Annie and Maria Farmer and members of Virginia Giuffre’s family in a statement obtained by Daily Mail.
‘Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency.
‘Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas.’
Maxwell’s lawyer David Oscar Markus confirmed to Daily Mail that she was moved from the Tallahassee prison on Thursday.
The 63-year-old convicted sex trafficker reportedly spent some time in a federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana before going on to the Texas facility.
The disgraced British socialite is now in the same prison as Theranos scammer Elizabeth Holmes and former Real Housewife of Salt Lake City Jen Shah.
Maxwell’s new home mostly holds white-collar criminals and only female inmates.
She will now be able to purchase beauty and leisure items from the commissary, including make-up and crochet and sewing kits.
Prison consultant Justin Paperny told Daily Mail he had never seen anyone convicted of a sex offense serve time in a minimum security prison. Tallahassee is rated low security.
‘She was in a low security prison, that looks like prisons on TV or in the movies. You’re fenced in, razor wire, women serving typically 10 years or longer, more violent crime, sexual offences,’ he said.
‘A camp is different and when you go to a place like Bryan, you feel like Disneyland.
‘She will feel incredibly free. There is a very low staff to prisoner ratio and camps like Bryan, no fences or barbed wire.
‘You can literally walk off and nobody will stop you. It’s a cushy country club and looks like a corporate office park or a junior college,’ added Paperny, who runs White Collar Advice, which advises future inmates on what to expect inside.
He called the move from Florida to Texas ‘a massive upgrade’ and suggested it was in return for giving an interview to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
‘After that meeting last week she’s been rewarded with a transfer to a prison that’s closer to some family in Dallas.
‘I’ve never seen this before,’ he emphasized.
At Bryan there is a softball field, a track for running – Maxwell is a keen runner – and even a pickleball court.
Paperny said: ‘She could study horticulture, parenting, adult education, she could become a teacher.
‘Visitation is more relaxed and she can have visitors on the weekends. It is very much a place where you can roam and move around the whole compound and just go back to the dorm to sleep and for head count’.
Paperny said that Bryan has ‘several’ TV rooms and prisoners can even use email, a privilege that he says Maxwell may be given.
Dozens of women in the facility have illegal mobile phones and Maxwell will likely be offered one, Paperny said.
Even without such a device she will get 300 minutes a month of calls on the prison phone lines.
Spencer Kuvin, a lawyer who represented several Epstein victims, gave an ominous warning about Maxwell’s move.
He said: ‘Remember what happened to Epstein when they moved him from high protective custody to a lower security level’.
Epstein hanged himself in 2019 while awaiting trial: an official report found that despite attempting suicide once before, his cellmate was moved out in a breach of Bureau of Prisons policy.
Maxwell’s lawyer declined to reveal the reason for the move when reached by The New York Times.
The transfer was handled by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which was unusual, as transfers are usually led by the US Marshals Service.
The Farmer sisters were both abused by Epstein as was Giuffre, who committed suicide in April. Her family members Sky and Amanda Roberts and Lanette and Danny Wilson also signed the harshly worded statement about the transfer.
‘It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received,’ they said.
The move comes as Maxwell’s lawyers are pushing for a pardon from Trump, who has not publicly ruled it out.
Maxwell’s lawyers said she would testify ‘openly and honestly’ to Congress in exchange for a pardon or immunity.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Maxwell last week, with a deposition date set for August 11.
But Markus, her lawyer, said she would invoke her 5th Amendment right and decline to testify is her conditions, which include immunity, were not met.
‘Ms. Maxwell cannot risk further criminal exposure in a politically charged environment without formal immunity. Nor is a prison setting conducive to eliciting truthful and complete testimony,’ Markus said
On Monday, Trump was asked about a potential pardon and replied: ‘Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it.’
Last week, Maxwell sat for hours answering questions by Justice Department officials about Jeffrey Epstein.
Blanche flew down to Florida to sit-down in person with the convicted child sex trafficking offender as the MAGA base demands answers on her knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes amid claims of a ‘cover-up.’
Her lawyer Markus said Maxwell ‘was asked maybe about 100 different people.’
‘The deputy attorney general is seeking the truth,’ Markus said. ‘He asked every possible question, and he was doing an amazing job.’
Last month the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist, angering the MAGA movement who expected president Trump to release all the information about the Epstein case.
Maxwell is the only person in prison connected to Epstein’s sex trafficking.
In 2023, she complained that she was living in fear at the Tallahassee facility after she ratted out two violent Cuban inmates for trying to extort her.
However conditions seemed to later improve for Maxwell, who spent her days in the Florida prison teaching Pilates and etiquette classes.
Maxwell also got a job in the prison library from where she filed hundreds of grievances about conditions in the prison, including her lack of access to hair dye.
She is appealing her conviction, based on the government’s pledge years ago that any potential Epstein co-conspirators would not be charged, Markus said.
The pledge was made when Epstein struck a deal with federal prosecutors in 2008 that shifted his case to Florida state court, where he pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.