British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell appears in court for a rare weekend hearing where attorneys make arguments about how the judge should instruct a jury on the law in her sex abuse trial.
The jury in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial will be allowed to consider whether the British socialite "consciously avoided" knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged encounters with teenage girls, the judge in the case said in a rare weekend hearing on Saturday.
The closing arguments and Judge Nathan's reading of about 80 pages of instructions are set for Monday. Prosecutors say Ms Maxwell recruited and groomed four teenagers to have sexual contact with the late financier between 1994 and 2004. Three of the accusers testified at the trial that Ms Maxwell herself inappropriately touched them when they were teenagers.The defence argued that since prosecutors elicited testimony from women who said Ms Maxwell was directly involved with Epstein's alleged acts, the jury could not also be told that "conscious avoidance" was proof of guilt.
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