Ian Maxwell, brother of convicted sex offender Ghislaine MaxwellDefended his sister, saying she was the “real victim” in the incident Jeffrey Epstein scandal and called Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre a “monster.”In an interview with The Telegraph published on Friday, he lashed out at Giuffre, who accused Epstein and Britain’s former Prince Andrew of sexual abuse and died by suicide in April aged 41.The New York Post quoted Ian as saying, “I know who the monster here is, and it’s not my sister, but Virginia Giuffre and her lies that had a devastating impact on Ghislaine. I didn’t shed a tear when she died.”Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of recruiting and grooming underage girls to carry out Epstein’s abuse, including sex trafficking of minors. She is serving a 20-year sentence and is trying to overturn her conviction.“My sister was the scapegoat. Someone had to pay for what Epstein did, so the government and the media chose her,” said Ian Maxwell. “I sincerely believe that if Epstein were still alive, he would be incarcerated and she would be free.”He also argued that her trial was “unfair and her conviction unsafe”.“Ghislaine did nothing wrong and her conviction took too long,” he said.Ian compared her sentence to that of Sean “Diddy” Combs.“There’s a situation where someone like P Diddy is in front of the same federal court on the same charge, getting a four-and-a-half-year sentence for extreme physical assault, and my sister got a 20-year sentence,” he said.Ian said he learned about his sister’s arrest by the FBI while watching the news, recalling that agents “sent out a helicopter and 20 armed agents as if she was a threat to society.”He argued that “feminists should really support Ghislaine because she is a woman who has been abused by the system” and said that “it is still possible that President Trump will respond to her request for clemency.”He said he spoke to his sister on the phone and she maintained her sense of humor.“You can’t have this experience and not turn it into something positive,” he said. “Here’s a great book to start with.”Ian added that if she had expected she would be arrested, “she would have flown to France in the first place because they don’t extradite their citizens.”He also pointed to the recently released Epstein documents, claiming they contained documents that “fully support her contention that she did not receive a fair trial.”“But she doesn’t have access to a computer in prison, so she can’t read them,” he said. “Is it any wonder I’m angry?”Ian described himself as his sister’s “de facto advocate” and said the family remained united in supporting her.He is the son of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, whose death at sea in 1991 sparked one of Britain’s biggest financial scandals after he robbed company pension funds.Ghislaine is being held at FPC Bryan, Texas, a minimum-security federal prison. The facility has previously come under scrutiny after she praised the facility’s cleanliness and said she was “happier and more importantly safe here” in leaked emails, while other inmates claimed she received “VIP treatment”. She was transferred there in July from a higher-security facility.“Blood is always thicker than water,” said Ian Maxwell. “The reality is, she’s my sister and people have no sympathy for her and she needs someone to be on her side. That’s what family is for.”
