NEW YORK (AP) — The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by the late Jeffrey Epstein.

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The verdict announced Wednesday capped a month-long trial featuring accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14.

"A unanimous jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of one of the worst imaginable – facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children – crimes that she committed with her longtime partner and co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damien Williams said. "The road to justice has been far too long, 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."

Jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty of every count except one.

She faces years in prison.

While the jury read the verdict, Maxwell stood stoic and looked at her siblings, who have been sitting behind her every day of the trial. She also did not hug her lawyers before leaving the courtroom, which is something out of the ordinary, the Associated Press reported.

It’s an end long sought by women who spent years fighting to hold Maxwell accountable for abusing them.

Her lawyers said she’s being used as a scapegoat for crimes committed by Epstein, who killed himself in 2019.

Jurors heard the testimony of four women during the trial about how when they were teens they were alleged victims of a sex-abuse scheme devised by Maxwell and Epstein.

No sentencing date has been set.

NEW YORK — The jury that is weighing Ghislaine Maxwell's fate has told a judge it is "making progress" in reaching a verdict after four full days of deliberations.

Still, Judge Alison J. Nathan made it clear on Tuesday she wants the jury to work longer hours in a race against a coronavirus surge that could derail proceedings.

The judge told lawyers that there was a high risk that jurors and trial participants may need to quarantine if they get the virus.

Jurors will return for the fifth day of deliberations Wednesday to consider the sex-trafficking charges against Maxwell, a British socialite. She is charged with grooming teenagers as young as 14 to be sexually assaulted by financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sexually abusing dozens of girls. He died by suicide in jail a month later.

Epstein had previously served 13 months in jail in connection with a 2008 Florida conviction on prostitution charges and solicitation of a minor. Experts have called that conviction a "sweetheart deal" between Epstein and local prosecutors.

Epstein's high-profile connections with leaders like Prince Andrew and former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump have put a worldwide microscope on Maxwell's trial.

Maxwell's lawyers say she's a scapegoat for the crimes that were levied at Epstein before his death.

Maxwell faces six charges linked to sex trafficking, conspiracy and enticing minors. She'll also face two charges of perjury, which will be tried at a later date.

Maxwell has been held without bail since she was arrested in July 2020.

The jury has provided few hints as to which way they're leaning. They requested multi-colored sticky notes, a white board, and some trial transcripts on Monday. They also asked for the definition of enticement and a question pertaining to the law.

The jury was given a few days off last week to celebrate Christmas.

NEW YORK —

The fate of Ghislaine Maxwell is now squarely in the hands of a jury.

The jury received the case in Maxwell's sex-trafficking trial just before 5 p.m. Monday, after prosecutors and Maxwell's defense attorneys delivered closing arguments.

Maxwell's trial speeded to a finish with a prosecutor labeling her a dangerous and sophisticated predator who recruited and groomed teenage girls to be sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein while a defense attorney told jurors during closing arguments that Maxwell is an "innocent woman."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe said Epstein could not have preyed on teenage girls for more than a decade without the help of the British socialite, who she described as the "lady of the house" as Epstein abused girls at a New York mansion, a Florida estate and a New Mexico ranch.

"Ghislaine Maxwell was dangerous," Moe told jurors, saying Maxwell accepted over $30 million from Epstein over the years. "Maxwell and Epstein committed horrifying crimes."

Defense lawyer Laura Menninger said prosecutors had failed to prove any charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Ghislaine Maxwell is an innocent woman, wrongfully accused of crimes she did not commit," Menninger said.

That portrayal conflicted with Moe's depiction of Maxwell as a "sophisticated predator who knew exactly what she was doing. She ran the same playbook again and again and again."

"She manipulated her victims and groomed them. She caused deep and lasting harm to young girls. It is time to hold her accountable," Moe said.

The summations came at the start of the fourth week of a trial that was originally projected to last six weeks. With a coronavirus outbreak in New York worsening by the day and a holiday weekend ahead, Judge Alison J. Nathan urged lawyers to keep their closings tight so the jury could begin deliberating as early as Monday.

Menninger's closing revisited a theme defense attorneys pressed at the trial's start: that Maxwell was made a scapegoat after Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan federal jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking trial.

"Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein," Menninger said.

Maxwell, 59, was supported in court by four siblings who sat next to one another in the first row of spectators.

Maxwell has been jailed without bail since her arrest in July 2020. The judge has denied her bail repeatedly, despite her lawyer's arguments that the pledge of her $22.5 million estate and a willingness to be watched 24 hours a day by armed guards would guarantee her appearance in court.

The closings came after two dozen prosecution witnesses testified, including four women who say they were abused by Epstein with the help of Maxwell when they were teenagers.

Moe faced the jury as Maxwell, in a white sweater, sat behind her at the defense table and wrote notes, occasionally turning the pages of a notebook. Later, Maxwell turned in her chair toward the jury, sometimes pulling down her black mask to sip from a water bottle.

The prosecutor told jurors that Maxwell was a "posh, smiling age-appropriate woman" who provided cover for Epstein's "creepy" behavior.

She asked them to ignore the testimony of a psychology professor who testified for the defense, saying the testimony that memories can fade over time and be influenced by what people hear, see or read was a "total distraction."

"These women know what happened to their own bodies," she said. "Your common sense tells you that being molested is something you never forget, ever."

But Menninger defended the testimony of the memory expert, citing instances in which Maxwell's accusers never mentioned the defendant's name when they first spoke of the abuse they endured from Epstein.

She said the testimony from accusers was manipulated by civil lawyers representing them as they pursued millions of dollars in payouts from a special fund set up after Epstein's suicide to compensate his victims.

Menninger said the women suddenly "recovered memories that Ghislaine was there."

A former boyfriend of a woman who says she was paid to give sexual favors to Jeffrey Epstein, starting at age 14, corroborated parts of her account Wednesday at the sex trafficking trial of the millionaire's longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The man, identified only as Shawn to protect the identity of his ex-girlfriend, said on multiple occasions in the early 2000s he drove three girls he knew to Epstein’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

He would wait in the car for an hour until the teenagers would emerge with $100 bills.

The girls included a woman who testified on Tuesday only as Carolyn to protect her privacy. She had told the jury she made hundreds of dollars giving sexualized massages to Epstein, and that Maxwell had fondled her and told her she “had a great body."

Shawn said he and Carolyn used some of the cash to support their drug habit.

The testimony came as the government neared the end of its case against Maxwell, who has denied charges she instructed teenagers to give Epstein sexual messages at the millionaire’s residences in Florida, New York and elsewhere.

Maxwell's lawyers have said she's being made a scapegoat for sex crimes committed by Epstein, who briefly went to jail in a child prostitution case in 2008, and then killed himself after he was hit with new charges in 2019.

The last of four key accusers was expected to testify Thursday before the government rests its case. The defense is set to start its case next week.

In his testimony Wednesday, Shawn said he drove the girls to Epstein's posh property from the much less affluent neighborhoods of West Palm Beach, where the teenagers lived, whenever he received a call from one of three women who worked for Epstein.

One of them, he said, had a “proper English" accent. Maxwell was raised in England.

Shawn testified that he never met Maxwell but he once met Epstein in his driveway when Epstein arrived late for a massage. He said Epstein “introduced himself and showed off his car.”

He said the teenagers would exchange their $100 bills at a Palm Beach gas station for smaller bills because no businesses in West Palm Beach would accept the large bills.

NEW YORK —

Jurors at the sex-abuse trial of Ghislaine Maxwell are expected Friday to see a law enforcement videotape of the interior of a Florida estate where prosecutors say she and financier Jeffrey Epstein exploited underage victims when the pair lived there together.

The video was shot during a 2005 raid at the Palm Beach home, which was decorated with nude photos and paintings of young women — decor that federal prosecutors in Manhattan claim is proof of a sexualized atmosphere encouraged by Maxwell, Epstein's "partner in crime."

Prosecutors have alleged the British socialite groomed teen girls by taking them on shopping trips and movie outings, talking to them about their lives and encouraging them to accept financial help from Epstein.

The government also says she helped to create a sexualized atmosphere by talking with the girls about sex and encouraging them to give Epstein massages. A woman identified as "Jane" testified this week that she had sexual interactions with Epstein at age 14 with Maxwell in the room and sometimes participating.

Maxwell, 59, denies the allegations against her, and her lawyers say prosecutors are going after her because they can’t try Epstein. She was Epstein’s onetime girlfriend and, later, employee.

On Friday, former Epstein housekeeper Juan Patricio Alessi returned to the witness stand of Friday to face cross-examination over his testimony that "Jane" and another woman who has accused Epstein of sexually abusing her as a teens were repeated visitors at the Palm Beach mansion, where Maxwell was "the lady of the house."

A lawyer for the British socialite sought to discredit Alessi — who worked for Epstein from 1990 to 2002 — by confronting him with a deposition from a civil case that the defense says was inconsistent with his trial testimony.

Alessi claimed on Friday that none of the many young women who visited the Florida home alerted him to any misconduct.

"I wish they would have because I would have done something," he said.

NEW YORK —

A judge on Monday rejected a $28.5 million proposed bail package for Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, saying her incarceration is necessary to ensure she faces trial on charges she recruited teenage girls for the late financier to sexually abuse.

U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan rejected the proposed bail for Ghislaine Maxwell in an order. But she did not immediately release an opinion explaining her reasoning, in order to allow defense lawyers and prosecutors to propose redactions.

Defense lawyers for Maxwell, who had lost a bail request shortly after her July arrest, recently offered the new bail package, saying Maxwell and her husband were offering all of their wealth — $22.5 million — and millions more in the assets of friends and family to secure bail. Maxwell's husband has not been publicly identified.

Her attorneys said Maxwell would remain in a New York City residence under 24-hour guard and would submit to electronic monitoring if the judge accepted the bail package.

A message seeking comment was sent to Maxwell's lawyers after Nathan ruled.

Prosecutors said Maxwell still retained access to significant wealth and was a high risk to flee because of her connections abroad — in addition to U.S. citizenship, she holds citizenship in the her native United Kingdom and France.

Maxwell, 59, was arrested in July at a secluded New Hampshire home and was brought to New York City.

She was charged with recruiting three teenagers as young as age 14 for Epstein to sexually abuse between 1994 and 1997. She also was accused of sometimes participating in the abuse. She pleaded not guilty to an indictment.

She has remained at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after Nathan concluded shortly after her arrest that there were no bail conditions that would ensure she would not flee.

"For substantially the same reasons as the Court determined that detention was warranted in the initial bail hearing, the Court again concludes that no conditions of release can reasonably assure the Defendant's appearance at future proceedings," Nathan wrote Monday.

"In reaching that conclusion, the Court considers the nature and circumstances of the offenses charged, the weight of the evidence against the Defendant, the history and characteristics of the Defendant, and the nature and seriousness of the danger that the Defendant's release would pose," the judge added.

Epstein killed himself in August 2019 at a Manhattan federal jail as he awaited a sex trafficking trial.