On Wednesday, a jury in the United States found British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of aiding and abetting Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of minors.

Between 1994 and 2004, four teenagers were allegedly recruited and groomed by Maxwell. As he was facing sexual assault accusations of his own, her ex-boyfriend, Epstein, committed suicide in 2019 while being held in a Manhattan prison cell.

Five of the six charges against Ghislaine Maxwell were found to be proven. Immediately following the announcement of the decision, Maxwell removed her mask and sipped water from her glass.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, which pushed women to come up about sexual assault by prominent and powerful people, the trials of movie producer Harvey Weinstein and singer R. Kelly came about. Among these cases, Maxwell's case is one of the most high-profile cases ever. A prosecution referred to Maxwell as Epstein's "partner in crime" during closing remarks in federal court in Manhattan.

"Ghislaine Maxwell made her own choices. She committed crimes hand in hand with Jeffrey Epstein. She was a grown woman who knew exactly what she was doing," Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe said.

According to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, Maxwell was found guilty of "one of the worst crimes conceivable" in a statement following the verdict announcement.

The road to justice has been far too long," his statement said. "But, today, justice has been done. I want to commend the bravery of the girls - now grown women - who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom."

For their part, the four accusers of Maxwell's attempted to depict their stories of the abuse as untrustworthy, stating that their recollections had been tainted by the passage of time and that they were motivated purely for financial gain.

"Epstein's death left a gaping hole in the pursuit of justice for many of these women," Maxwell's defense lawyer Bobbi Sternheim said. "She's filling that hole, and filling that empty chair."

After dating Epstein for a while in the 1990s, Maxwell attended high-society events and flew on private aircraft with him.

Maxwell acquired a house in Bradford, New Hampshire, for $1 million in cash, a few months after the death of Epstein. She resided there until her arrest in July 2020. Maxwell had "slithered away," according to an FBI officer.

Robert Maxwell's eldest daughter, Maxwell had grown up in an opulent environment.

After starting a publishing company, her father bought many tabloids, including the Daily Mirror. In 1991, he was discovered dead off the coast of his boat off the Canary Islands.

The fact that the Duke of York received so little attention during Ghislaine Maxwell's trial must have been a huge comfort for him. By not taking the stand and by not revealing what was in her "little black book" of social contacts he was reduced to a mere footnote in the New York proceedings by his accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Andrew's role in Maxwell's courtroom drama was restricted to remarks of his being a passenger on Epstein's "Lolita Express" private jet, with the pilots testifying to having seen nothing to imply sexual behavior on the part of those on board during flights.

Giuffre was "available" if called upon to give evidence, the court heard. "Certainly, if she had been called, it would have seen Andrew centre-stage," said Mark Stephens of the law firm Howard Kennedy.

Prosecutors gave no reason why they decided not to call Guiffre in. Analysts claimed that this could have complicated matters though.

It could be, said Stephens, "that the reason the prosecution did not call Giuffre in the Ghislaine Maxwell case is that they risked an own goal if her credibility could be undermined, which would have given Maxwell a leg-up".

"It's fair to say, I think, there must be some relief for Andrew that Giuffre did not appear, because it does distance him, somewhat, from the case," said Stephens.

Nonetheless, he explained that the prince must not rejoice. "it did not matter if Maxwell was found guilty, or innocent", as the prince's reputation was already tarnished, "indelibly so, as, frankly, the association with a convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein is enough".

"A guilty verdict on Ghislaine Maxwell, you might say, is almost priced in regarding Prince Andrew and reputational damage. People have already made up their minds about him and the verdict would have no impact on how they view him."

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