Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction on five of six charges—including sex trafficking and conspiracy—carries a potential 65-year sentence, yet the trial’s anticlimactic delivery and jurors’ late request for Dr. Elizabeth Loftus’s testimony hint at unresolved tensions. While Maxwell faces life behind bars, elites like Alan Dershowitz (accused of misconduct) and Prince Andrew (rape allegations) evade accountability, exposing a justice system that shields the powerful. The verdict feels incomplete, as Epstein’s network of enablers—from politicians to media figures—remains unscrutinized, reinforcing the idea that wealth and influence still outlaw consequences for child rape. [Automatically generated summary]
emergency podcast okay this is not an emergency podcast no this is just regular day 18 yeah but it feels like it's i would have stayed longer If we didn't have to record this podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I did just check the old bird website.
Uh-huh.
Why did I say that?
I know.
So awful.
What did you see?
I feel like I just went a little soy there.
I saw that Leah Safian came down.
She didn't say anything, and neither did the sisters.
You should have used a different adjective for came down for her.
She rolled.
She rolled down the hill.
Yeah.
Let's get this out of the way first.
Okay, Maxwell guilty.
Five of six.
Verdict is in.
Maxwell is guilty.
Yes.
Ghillaine.
Yes.
Maxwell.
Ghillain.
My name is Bryce.
I'm Liz.
We are, of course, joined by producer Young Chomsky, and this is the last ever episode of True Anon.
Just kidding, but I want to make clear, the three of us found innocent.
Cleared on all charges.
Not even something that you can be found in court, actually.
But they made it exclusively.
We were involved in a secret trial where we've all been on, unfortunately, on trial.
We haven't been able to talk about it because it's secret, but good news.
We've been set free.
And we have had a queue clearance restored.
So let's get the big number of things out of the way first.
Big number things, we got, what's the big number things?
Big, the.
The guilty thing.
Okay, so guilty, like we said, on five of six charges.
Yes.
Now, I'm going to read through this so that we can be clear about what she was found guilty on and what she wasn't.
The first count is, they're very like repetitive.
I apologize.
Yeah.
Conspiracy to entice individuals under 17 to travel in interstate commerce with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Count two.
Enticement of an individual under 17, Jane only, to travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.
Not guilty.
Now, when they said that, by the way, I went, uh-oh.
Yeah.
My ears perked up.
But then, conspiracy to transport individuals under 17 to travel in interstate commerce with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.
Guilty.
Transportation of an individual under the age of 17, Jane only, with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.
Guilty.
Conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of individuals under the age of 18.
Guilty.
And then finally, the most serious charge, sex trafficking of an individual under age 18, Carolyn.
Guilty.
So that is big.
That is, you know, in the terms of this trial, that is a, I mean, God, five out of six.
I mean, this is, this carries a maximum, I think, of up to 65 years in prison.
Yeah, that last charge on sex trafficking for Carolyn, that charge alone carries a maximum of 40 years, which for a 60-year-old woman, newly 60, that's basically a life sentence.
I mean, yeah, even if she gets a relatively light sentence here.
Yeah.
I can't imagine that she'll get out of prison alive.
I mean, maybe, you know.
Because of COVID.
Well, no, just, you know, she might try to join the Aryan Nations.
Witnesses Testimony Confusion00:04:39
They might not have heard the podcast.
They don't understand that she's not, of course, Jewish.
And so, you know, these things happen.
This was.
Let's set the scene a little bit for how this came out.
Let's set the scene.
So we were twiddling our thumbs all day.
We're not going to, listen, we didn't go to Lorenzo.
No.
Which perhaps good choice.
Maybe we put some good karma out there, good juju.
Yeah.
We didn't give that son of a bitch poison or any money.
At about quarter to five, little, you know, people start rustling around and we say, oh, something's going on.
Something's going on.
Lawyers come back in.
And I think we all assumed there'd be another note.
Yeah.
So this happened yesterday when shortly before five, despite Judge Nathan's, you know, basically pronouncement that they should stay here until at least six, you know, they summoned us back to court with a note at near five yesterday and said, we're leaving at five.
Yeah.
We expected something similar today because, you know, basically the same time as yesterday, she's got a note and much to our surprise, she says, we have a verdict.
Yes.
And I was shocked.
Shocked.
This, well, this caused an audible ripple of sound.
And I, you know, everyone kind of just like gets electric and freaks out for a second.
Some people were talking too loudly.
I almost shushed them.
Yes.
But everyone's sort of freaking out.
I start paying very close attention to Glenn Maxwell at this point.
Yeah, me too.
I was laserized on her.
Yes.
And she is drinking some fucking water.
She's putting it back.
Yeah.
This is a thirsty bitch.
Uh-huh.
Because I can see her mummified insides right now, baking for years in the harsh sun outside of Alexandria has finally come out to the circle.
I don't know what the fuck I'm saying here.
The lady was thirsty and she was putting them back.
Something that I do when I'm very nervous as well.
Yeah, she, she's, you know, okay.
I want to say that up until this point, look, there was an earlier note in the day.
The day opened with another note where the jurors were asking for five witnesses' testimony.
Yes.
Including our girl, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, the memory hack, which every, look, every single one of the journalists that we've been talking to, all of us, and we all agreed, we're like, this is not a good sign.
Yeah.
And in fact, Loftus specifically was my litmus test for like, if these jurors are going insane, or like if there's one really big, like, I don't fucking believe these chicks, hold out.
Yeah.
Then asking for Loftus's testimony is a sign.
That's like the groundhog does or doesn't see its shadow.
Whichever one makes the bad thing happen longer.
Yeah.
And sure enough, I mean, this was actually, they had passed the note.
They'd asked for five different witnesses' testimony.
The third name was illegible.
Comes out later that it's Elizabeth Loftus with a clarification.
And so after this, you know, the real scuttlebutt around the crew hanging out upstairs, downstairs, was that the defense has been electric.
Yes.
Very happy.
We're talking, look, we were shown gun, finger gun movements.
Yes.
There was someone who said Laura Menninger did a kind of like shoot him up hello.
I can't believe I missed this.
With two finger guns.
Well, no, you know, slight clarification there, Liz.
We actually did not get confirmation of a moving or firing finger gun.
That's right.
They did say that it was possibly just.
The guns were shown.
Yes.
Unclear if the guns were fired.
Anyway, so the defense has just been completely and totally electric.
And a real like interesting and kind of bizarre, I don't know, pose that Ghillain has taken in the courtroom.
Julie Kay Brown, new friend of the show, has been writing and tweeting a lot about, I don't know, the kind of strange care and attention that she and her family have been getting from, and treatment really, that they've all been getting from the district court.
I don't know.
It does seem very odd to me, I will say.
Yeah, they're allowed to sort of be ushered in.
Leah Safian, who, by the way, is not attached to this case in any official capacity, according to a friend of the show at Inner City Press, Matt.
Not on any paperwork attached to this case, has been sitting up with the defendant at the defendant's table.
Leah Safian's Unofficial Role00:07:57
Not while proceedings were going on, but, you know, generally you're not allowed to do these kind of things.
There has been cell phones in there and contrast that with some of the victims.
Not the victims involved in this case, but like Sarah Rancon, Ransom, other victims that have shown up, were not allowed this sort of easy access to the courtroom.
And in fact, I think we're sort of like not actually allowed to enter the courtroom because they hadn't gotten there early enough.
Yeah, one girl was actually escorted out and asked to leave today.
Oh, I didn't even know that.
Really?
Wow.
Yeah, it was a big, a really big scene.
I think Julie's writing about it or has written about it.
Good lord.
So Ghelane's, yeah, Ghelane's pose throughout this whole thing, and increasingly so as these days of deliberation has gotten on, has been very bizarre.
Notably so.
I think lots of people have written about it.
But so to see her then as this thing is about to be read.
So again, set the scene.
We're all kind of like shaking in our boots.
Actually, today you're not wearing boots.
No.
Interesting.
I went barefoot.
But we're all kind of like getting excited.
Judge Nathan, by the way, I don't know if you caught this.
I saw a gavel.
I saw written in the notes here, baby.
You know what she did?
I don't want to get too sidetracked here.
She moved the gavel from one hand to the next, clutching the gavel.
It says right here, underlined, I saw a gavel.
Right here, baby.
Gavel.
Where did I write it?
I can't feel.
Oh, maybe it's in this notebook.
Gavel.
She, yeah.
You call us the gavel teens because we're right on this story.
Yes, and weird.
So they, she doesn't.
So old Judge Nathan gets, calls the jury in.
She says, we've reached a verdict.
And sort of everyone goes, oh.
Calls the jury in.
Eons it takes between her.
So much paper shuffling.
So much paper shuffling.
And she's just staring straight ahead.
Ghelane is sipping water as if she was really thirsty.
See that?
I got the Pen Writers Award for shit right there.
And she's fucking knocking this Fiji bottle back, drinking in a paper cup.
You know, that's how she drinks.
And finally, they bring the jury in.
Allison Nathan, the judge, asks the four person, which is.
Madam Four person.
Yeah, no, no.
No, she's Madam Four person.
Madam Four person.
Have you reached a verdict?
We have, Your Honor.
Passes the note.
And we kind of.
And then it goes very fast.
Yes.
Like, I gotta say, for all the fucking pageantry that this dumbass, which I gotta say, some things to say about legal system has put us through, they really did not stick the landing.
No.
She was like, count one, guilty, count two, not guilty, count three, guilty.
It's like, hold on, lady, let's pause.
Yeah, cool your fucking jets, baby doll.
Like, this is it.
The show's over.
Gavel.
This is the final, the final pronouncement.
And you're just fucking rushing through it.
All right.
Here's something she should have done.
Gaveled in between each one.
Or at all.
No.
But, you know, it was, it was.
So here, it was, it was a scene.
That's all over this woman.
And I got to say, expected a little bit of pandemonium.
No pandemonium.
Well, a bunch of reporters ran out immediately because I think they have to, this is lingo I've learned.
They had to file with their editor.
Editor?
I don't know.
That seems like a fake institution to me.
Yeah.
Just get it right the first time.
Just fucking, yeah, get a sub stack, bro.
Sorry, you're.
A journalist, but someone else has to write some of it?
Okay.
Weird.
Yeah.
So they, they, a bunch of people run out.
I'm lasered on Ghelane at this point.
Lasered.
And, you know, Judge Allison Nathan, you know, says, thank you, Derry.
They sit down.
Yeah, they sit down.
At some point, she's sitting down.
Yeah.
Well, she, she, she, she says, dismissed.
Dismissed.
Goodbye.
She has the whole speech, you know, hey, you can talk to anybody, but only talk from your own lived experience.
No one else's.
Don't speak for anyone else's experience.
If you're not Protestant, you can't talk about if Ghelane did it.
And also, thank you so much.
She was so thankful.
She was like, oh my God.
Thank you so much for ending me today.
I can't believe you did this all through COVID.
Thank you.
She has, she has, she has the court rise.
Yes.
Ghelane, and this was really the most obvious outward sign that Ghelane possibly wasn't feeling too good.
She starts standing up.
And I'm not going to say, she didn't like fall back in her chair.
No, there was no, but there, she was not even.
You know how like when you try to, you know, you how you like your leg falls asleep?
Yeah.
And you try to stand up and you're like, oh, I ain't working good.
And you kind of like go back down.
You're like, give it another shot.
You know, what's this mean?
She basically tried to get out of her chair twice, sort of fell backwards.
Not dramatically.
I don't want to exaggerate here.
But enough that we took notice.
Definitely took notice.
She had the old Hillary Clinton jelly legs.
Yeah, I mean, this is really like, she realized her adrenochrome supply was gone ever.
She had to dig deep to keep her poise.
Yes, and stood up.
And after that, it was over so quickly.
I mean, they talk about, you know, Judge Nathan asked if, you know, about some filings that will need to be done by the defense.
She said sentencing will be.
She didn't give a time when sentencing is going to be.
No, no clue when that's going to be.
It was kind of an odd thing, too.
Again, not very dramatic.
They usher her out, Killain, I mean.
Yeah.
And she's wearing kind of an eggplant maroon sweater, by the way, black mask.
Yeah.
And like, they don't like cuff her or anything.
No.
And in fact, the marshals don't nay lay a hand upon her.
Yeah.
They just kind of stand behind her and kind of like, okay, go through this room.
So it like really wasn't very, there was kind of anticlimactic.
She like sort of like looked at her family, but it wasn't like she didn't like stop and say anything to her.
Yeah, yeah.
And after that, it was done.
That was it.
We walked outside.
Quite the hubbub.
Quite the, I tell you what.
Hubbub everywhere.
Felt like Dan Pete Davidson on a date with Kim, Kim Burleigh Kardashio.
Oh, yeah.
Because we walked down these slides.
Flashing lights.
Yeah.
Flash bulbs popping off everywhere.
Tons of people.
A lot of people on ketamine.
Yes.
Tons of people outside.
And we sort of stand around for quite a while.
Like, you know, it's the, the, the feeling is sort of like, there's a lot of people, frankly, who are just walking by the courthouse.
It's like, what's it, what's happening?
Yeah, they're like, hey, Lord's over here.
Oh, I'm Joe stupid.
Let's go look.
Well, I think I would also look, but then again.
Me?
I got places to be.
Oh, look at that.
to see oh i gotta go to i gotta go i'm not I'm not stopping for nothing.
No hubbub can catch me.
Stopping every single time I see any more than two people sitting in one place.
But the crowd was, you know, people were sort of just waiting.
Obviously, listen, family has not been given a lot of interviews during this.
Kevin came out very early during the trial and gave a little talk to the Bank of Microphones.
They set up every single day.
Just in case.
Just in case.
You know, we talked about her conditions in the MDC.
Today expected the AUSA to come out.
He might have, we left before he would.
Seeing Justice System Up Close00:15:16
Look, I'm going to tell you right now what he's going to say.
Wow, this has been such a journey.
We don't want to take too much credit.
You know, the credit really is due to the strong, brave women who stood up there to tell their stories.
And let's not forget that justice may have been done in this case, but many cases is not.
You know, so whatever.
Absolutely wrong.
Well, I don't know if he didn't say that, but he definitely, I expected that to be in the statement, but he didn't say anything about any other cases.
Well, I just am trying to say the sentiment.
Yeah, it was basically that.
I did think they would be like, but, you know, we will get justice for these victims.
But like, they were like.
Oh, no, I just meant the, because, you know, that 750,000 children go missing every year.
That's true.
Yeah.
And that has been a big point among the prosecution.
They brought that up at every point.
No, no.
What I really mean was that he would reference just, you know, in general, so much sexual assault is not prosecuted or whatever.
I don't know.
So we're standing there and I, you know, I do this every night, but, you know, I usually don't disclose it.
I called Alan Dershowitz.
Sure.
And you're like, buddy, what up?
Oh my God, it's so crazy.
Well, first of all, how are you?
I saw a tweet that he was on BBC.
I'm like, he's on BBC.
So I called him and I told him that I was the truth that I'm building with, I kind of ate the word.
I'm yeah.
And he's asked me who I was with.
I said, new and on podcast.
Why don't you just say our name?
I don't know.
I also said we're a British podcast.
Why would you say that?
I like lying.
Okay.
But we are all of those things.
We could be.
It's subjective.
You can podcast him.
You're going to be from anywhere because you listen to it on the internet.
Anyways, I asked him, like, how you feeling, Alan?
And he says, he starts going into his whole fucking spiel.
So listeners, as you know, Virginia Jeffrey and another victim whose name does not come to the top of my head right now have both accused Alan Dershowitz of sexual impropriety, let's say.
Sure.
Basically accused him of rape.
And Virginia Jeffrey, he has been on a long crusade to be like, she's fucking lying.
He's been very litigious, which is also why I did not make it a very long phone call.
And any chance this guy gets, I mean, most famously, I think in the Netflix documentary where he challenges, this is always his deal.
He challenges Virginia to say on the record anywhere that he, you know, sexually assaulted her, which, of course, she immediately does in that documentary.
But his whole thing is he's trying to discredit Virginia Jeffrey, who he pronounced her name Virginia Goufre.
And basically, he didn't even mention himself.
His new angle on this is that it's good for Prince Andrew that Virginia was not in this.
And this will be very good for Virginia's civil litigation against Prince Andrew because she was not included in this.
We've already said the reasons that Virginia was probably not included.
And frankly, they have very little to do with Prince Andrew.
I also asked him how he was feeling.
I said, I asked if he was happy with the verdict.
And he told me, I'm not happy with the charges.
And I asked him why.
He said, it's a terrible tragedy for everyone involved, for the victims and for Ghelane Maxwell.
And I said, damn, that's fucking crazy.
And said later, bitch.
And hung that shit up.
Then I called him back and asked him what he was doing later.
Sure, sure.
And if you were still on for the reservation.
Are we still going?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mission Chinese.
So, yeah, that was basically his statement.
The guy will just pick up.
He's a regular Rudy Julian.
Sure.
Oh, yeah.
He hasn't met a phone he hasn't picked up.
No, no, no, no, he has not.
And so that was basically it.
Now we're back here.
Yeah.
I think that, you know, I think we both have some thinking to do, some thoughts.
I know I have some thoughts that I need to kind of sit with and sift through about what we experienced.
You know, we've never covered a trial, obviously.
We've not really covered anything, to be honest.
But that aside, you know, I don't have any real insight or I haven't had any personal insight into the legal system.
I don't actually know.
I don't think I know any lawyers.
Like, I don't have any friends that have gone to law school or I don't know the justice system or anything like that, really.
And so it's been a really interesting experience.
I think, I don't know, I don't want to speak for you, but for both of us and seeing this kind of case.
And it is a weird feeling because, you know, you start to doubt, is she going to get convicted, of course?
We've detailed our own kind of feelings about the prosecution and the defense throughout this whole, you know, this, this whole journey that we've been on.
But there's this weird sort of incomplete completeness about this, about this ending or something.
And I can't quite put my finger on it.
I have some ideas.
I don't want to like kind of blabber mouth through it.
So I need to sort of think on it a little bit.
But there is something about something about this doesn't sit totally right with me.
And I can't quite figure out what it is.
I think it's this experience of seeing the justice system in person.
That is, there's stuff that's off-putting.
We've talked about the way victims feel treated, the way the kind of legal games are played out, and the pageantry of it all is very confusing to witness, I'll say.
But I'm doing that thing where I'm just blabbing because I haven't sorted my thoughts out.
So I'm going to stop.
So yeah, I've thought about a few different aspects of this.
I have had some pretty negative experiences with the justice system myself, starting with my very first one from a pretty young age that basically ended up into like a multi-year long saga that fucking was just awful and severely affected my life for a not, you know, overly long period of time, but a decent while, especially as a young man.
And this was, I've never been in part of a jury trial or anything like that.
And this was and just never have shown up if I've had jury duty.
And so this was kind of eye-opening to see all of this, you know, actually work in person, you know, in the machinery of it all.
Exactly.
I'm going to have to sit again.
I agree with you.
I'm going to have to sit with my, my, my, my thoughts on that for a little while too.
Yeah.
One thing that I have sort of noticed, and this is just from talking to people who've asked me, you know, like, how's, you know, covering the trial going or, you know, people tweeting as and that kind of shit.
Basically, a lot of people are like, okay, so this is a, this is a cover-up, right?
And everybody has kind of their ideas of how the cover-up could go.
And I agree, like, this is.
I'm finding it hard to describe in precise language exactly like how they're doing it here.
I mean, one thing we've said here is that it's a very narrow focus on the trial, right?
Almost any extraneous names were basically left out by the prosecution.
Most names of any sort of famous people or well-known people connected to Epstein or Ghelane were actually mentioned by the defense, although not in any sort of way that like usually they were actually they were deployed in order to show that, oh, well, there's no way that he would have done these kind of things with these powerful people around.
One thing though is it misses the point to think that she actually has to get off for this to be any sort of like obscuring event, right?
And in fact, the more I think about it, her actually getting off, which I never really actually considered a serious possibility, her actually getting off would probably bring a great deal more attention to it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, there has been kind of a lot of attention to this, you know, on this trial already.
But again, this trial is so narrow and so focused on these specific crimes that Ghelane Maxwell did.
Ghelane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.
Not Ghelane Maxwell and Alan Dershowitz, not Ghelane Maxwell and George Mitchell, not Ghelane Maxwell and Prince Andrew.
Ghelane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.
Stuff that we already know well, you know, that is basically among the general public, not in dispute.
And so you don't need to let her get off.
I mean, if Ghelane Maxwell was any use to any sort of intelligence agencies, I think that use has long expired and they've cut the ties with her, you know?
Her heyday with Epstein ended well over a decade ago.
And I mean, obviously she still had contact with him, but really her like her time spent at his side helping him do these things, that's been done for a while.
And so any sort Sort of, you know, loyalty or use that anyone in real power would have for clearly did not manifest itself, right?
I mean, she was arrested, she's being imprisoned.
Now, the way this has gone keeps it very narrowly focused on just her.
And I mean, you know, the general way that she's spoken about and the general way that she's portrayed and the way that she's been portrayed, even somewhat during this trial, is as somebody who has functioned as a woman who not only partakes in abuse, but procures these young girls for Epstein and, of course, the people that Epstein was cavoting around with.
Now, none of those other people are on trial.
And frankly, none of those other people will ever be on trial.
I doubt even Sarah Kellen will be on trial.
No, I think this is over.
Exactly.
And so while the judge's gavel may not have rang out in that damn courtroom, much to my dismay, it is sort of like gaveling this as like, officially, this is done.
Ghillaine Epstein, excuse me, the Maxwell Epstein case is fucking closed.
Yeah, I think that's part of, there's like a couple parts to what you're talking about that have, that are really like kind of not sitting with me right.
All right.
Like I feel uncomfortable to use that kind of language.
Like I'm not, you know, I'm trying to feel, I'm trying to feel comfortable in the uncomfortable, but I can't because I feel uncomfortable.
I think like something we've talked about through this whole thing that really has been tough is through this whole case, we've sort of gotten these like kind of new fuzzy boundaries to this story.
This Epstein-Ghillain saga, right?
Who is Jeffrey Epstein?
When did he meet Ghillane Maxwell?
Why did he meet Ghillane Maxwell?
How did he get his money?
There are so many still unanswered questions that are very basic biographical information.
Yes.
That we still will, now that this is over, none of that will ever come to light, right?
We've sort of in the trial, like little pockets would open up and it would feel like you just want to reach in and pry it open so you can kind of see, you know, you often say that like when Jeffrey died, when he killed himself, allegedly, that it felt like kind of like a veil was lifted for a brief moment and then like closed again, you know?
And there's been moments in that case where it feels like maybe you're starting to see a little bit of how these kind of society circles, however, however we want to describe that society, ruling class, very powerful people, a lot of money, like how these circles of people move and interact with each other and what these kind of, you know, how this all kind of fucking works, right?
And we haven't really, there's so much still that's so unanswered about all of this.
None of it really makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
You know, even this is something, again, I've been really harping on, at least in our private conversations, but like, even in terms of like abuse cases, it's a very odd case.
Like, you know, the way that he and she abused these girls is not typical of a kind of like a male like rapist or assaulter.
You know, it really didn't have to do with dominating young women or showing a kind of sense of power or whatever.
It was a rich, it was ritualized.
Yeah.
You know, it was, it was, it seemed more as if it was like a necessity or a tool for him, his own personal.
He had to come three times a day.
Yeah.
There's a kind of bizarre, like, um, like yogic quality or whatever.
You know what I mean?
Like there's a, like he was doing a practice.
Yeah.
Like all of this, none of it sits right and none of the puzzle pieces like fully fit together or make sense.
You know what I mean?
And it's sort of the same kind of like, I feel like maybe another part of this that's kind of, again, making me feel uncomfortable is that I feel like I saw a lot of kind of windows into the machinery of the justice system, like in a similar way that were also kind of very quickly closed shut.
Where, you know, you realize you're watching these two sets, the prosecution and the defense, but they all kind of know each other, right?
They're actually like a lot in weird ways, they're kind of colleagues or they think of themselves as professional colleagues.
They are.
Yeah.
And there are ways that they kind of like try to one-up each other, invest each other.
And there's a real competitive spirit that is sort of centered around just their own kind of their own personal and professional goals, irrespective of the case or the victims or their client or whatever.
And, you know, a lot of it is, I don't want to be embarrassed at the next like Yale meeting for drinks that I, you know, that we lost the Maxwell case or, you know, whatever that was.
You know what I mean?
And again, it's like this thing that you're seeing kind of a window of, that this is what makes what we call justice move and go around this kind of like weird professional layer of, you know, of the bureaucracy in the same way that this kind of weird ruling class in their own way, they have their own social circles, right?
And we're seeing a little bit of that.
And then now we're seeing this little part of this kind of, you know, lower rung of the legal government bureaucracy who are all, you know, they, again, make the machine move, make the world go round.
And all of it, again, doesn't really have to do with any kind of substantive concept of justice for these women.
Well, I mean, even just look at some of the personalities involved, right?
Maureen Comey, old Jim Comey's daughter, right?
I mean, she prosecuted Tartaglione.
Bobby Sternheim was one of the rep, one of Tartaglione's, to be clear, many, many lawyers, which it's a death penalty case.
Why Some Escape Justice00:03:31
So kind of everyone wants their little finger in there.
But it's like these people are like, this is kind of just like their rarefied world.
And whatever personalities enter into it.
And, you know, this is how the justice system works.
Whatever personalities enter into it and like, you know, whatever side of whichever matchup they're on, you know, Everdell used to be a prosecutor in SDNY, I believe.
Like, it's like, that's just, it's this machine that sort of cycles people in and out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
And I just, you know, I was sitting there thinking about this.
And yeah, I mean, I said this before we were, you know, when we were really moved by this testimony and disturbed kind of how it felt like completely separate from the way that the lawyers were interacting with each other and like almost like two different planes.
We're watching like two people, like people operating on two different planes.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And it feels a little bit like that still for me.
And I was thinking, I was like, you know, I get why victims don't testify.
Yeah.
Like I fully 1000% understand why you would not throw yourself into this machine because I don't know.
I mean, look, I'm not speaking for any of the victims.
And I obviously, you know, Ghillane should rot in fucking prison.
And I think she will.
But like, I don't know.
Well, this is the best version of justice that we got, I think.
And yet it's still so fucking incomplete.
And there's something there that is really difficult to sit with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agreed.
I mean, it's, it's, it's funny because this is like technically of all of the options available here, like at the, at today, at, you know, at the end of the trial, this verdict is one of the better verdicts we could hope for.
Absolutely.
Right.
Like she is going to be array in prison, even unless the judge does something, some very funny accounting with the fucking sentencing, she's probably going to be away in prison for the rest of her life.
Yeah.
And it's still, yeah, agreed.
It's not, I mean, I think part of why this feels so incomplete to me is because, you know, it is the official kind of case close.
There was never any like investigation at like a congressional level over, you know, the handling of this case or over really, you know, the people who are implicated in this case.
I mean, some people like Ben Sass, you know, sort of made these like motions at them.
Never going to fucking happen.
And frankly, like, aside from a few people being shunned at Martha Zavinia, I mean, Dershowitz was actually shunned at Martha Zavigne for his Trump connections, not for his Epstein connections.
Right.
Because half those people.
It's worse, right?
Exactly.
Well, half of those people fucking have them too.
I mean, at the end of the day, if you pull back, it's like what this is about is like a huge number of people in the political, financial, and media elite at the very least hobnobbed with a serial child rapist and, you know, at most participated sometimes often in what he did.
You know, Prince Andrew, for example, like this is somebody who has been directly accused by a couple people, Americans, of rape.
And is there ever going to be like a warrant issue?
Of course not, because of, well, I think there would be quite a lot of political fallout.
Although, I got to say, I would join the Marines if we had to go to war with England over that.
It's not going to happen.
Not going to happen.
I mean, you'll never join the Marines.
No, no, I would pass, but I would.
You think I probably, I probably physically could, though.
No Legal Repercussions00:02:32
She's nodding.
So it's, you know, but like a lot of these people, in fact, no, none of these people will ever face any kind of legal repercussions from this.
You know, there'll maybe be some civil suits, although aside from Andrew, and, you know, there's ongoing Dershowitz's octopus of lawsuits, both against him and admitting from him.
But beyond that, like all these people basically, they got away with it.
You know?
As of now, they've gotten away with it.
And they've gotten away with it legally.
You know, and the message is very clear here that if you have enough money in your bank account, you can rape a kid and you'll be fine.
And that's kind of like, you know, yes, Ghislaine's going to prison, but none of these other people are.
Well, this has been a real journey.
Mm-hmm.
We...
We are concluding our trial coverage, our daily trial coverage.
Although we will be back with again, I think we've got some, you know, some thinking to do, some old, you know, sitting with our noggin.
That doesn't sound right.
Well, we have different noggins, first of all.
To, I don't know, kind of like take a look back and I don't know, maybe, maybe not.
Maybe we have nothing else to say.
I think we do.
I think we do too.
I think we do.
Yeah.
But we'll be back real soon.
And if we don't see you before then, happy new year.
Yes.
I love you.
My name is Brace.
I'm Liz.
We are, of course, as always, joined by producer Young Chomsky.
And I want to say real quick, it has been a pleasure to cover this with you, Liz.
A pleasure and an honor.
My good sir.
Young Chomsky.
My white knight in the city, sighing city on a hill.