The line at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in lower Manhattan begins in the dead cold of the night with a few men huddling in a parked car to keep warm in the morning.
The line-sitters are paid $30 to $50 an hour to hold a place in line for journalists and the public who can afford it. The jury is considering her fate.
Liz Stein waits in line almost every day because she can't afford a line-sitter.
She starts her day at 4 a.m.
She takes a two-hour Greyhound bus ride from her home in Center City, Philadelphia, to the bus depot in Midtown Manhattan. She takes the subway to downtown and walks to the courthouse in the cold, with her feet numb, along with everyone else. She makes the same trip back home at the end of the day.
She gets into the main courtroom with no questions asked after a short line at the courthouse.
On this day, Stein wears a bright pink wool coat on top of a blazer, a black skirt and shoes, and she has a strand of pearls or a gold locket around her neck.
She has a backpack at her feet. There are two Victoria's Secret nightgowns and a black gown inside. She says Ghislaine and Jeffrey gave her these items as a reminder of the sexual assaults she suffered as a college student.
Some of the women she procured were under the age of 18 and she was accused of participating in sexual abuse.
Stein and other accusers have not been guaranteed a place in the main courtroom because of the court's hierarchy, which gives priority seating to Maxwell's family in the front row. Most of them have been put in overflow courtrooms on other floors, with a video screen showing a small portion of the main courtroom. It is difficult to know which lawyer is speaking because not all of them are on camera.
The placeholders wait in the pre-dawn hours outside the New York City courtroom where Ghislaine Maxwell's trial is taking place. They are paid by people who want to attend.
Stein said that the sisters and brothers were ushered into the courtroom every day like royalty. It is hard to understand why the family of an accused sex abuser gets a seat in the courtroom.
Sarah Ransome, a South African-born woman who said she was abused by Epstein at the age of 22, arrived at the court on the first day of the trial and told the Herald she was "appalled" that she and other accusers hadn't been granted special treatment.
Robert Y. Lewis said that he had contacted the U.S. Attorney's office months before the trial and was told that Ransome didn't qualify as a victim.
Ransome spoke at a New York hearing with other accusers weeks after he was found dead in a Manhattan jail.
The trial in Manhattan involves only four of the women who are suspected of being abused.
In a court setting witnesses are not allowed to sit in the courtroom and hear others testify to avoid being tailored to match the stories of others. None of the accusers have been in the gallery.
Lewis contacted the judge to inquire about access. On October 14th, Nathan ordered accusers to contact the court administrator and the office of the prosecutor to get access to the trial.
Ransome was given the choice to attend the closing arguments or the trial the next day, but he chose to attend the closing arguments. She attended the closing arguments.
When asked how many seats had been set aside in the courtroom for the family and accusers, the U.S. attorney's office played a game of hot potato. They didn't give answers to any of the questions. The request for information was not responded to by Olsen.
The Perversion of Justice series chronicled the story of how power and money corrupts and how the privileged few are able to live by a different set of rules in the criminal justice system.
The New York trial is a bitter example of how prosecutors in South Florida ignored the accusers when they were given a secret plea deal with Epstein. In 2005-2007, dozens of middle and high school girls were accused of being sexually abused by the man who lived in Palm Beach.
The powerful, politically connected financier was allowed to plead guilty to minor prostitution charges after federal prosecutors quietly negotiated a plea deal. He spent most of his time in the county jail under a work-release program.
A federal judge ruled that the deal was illegal and that prosecutors misled some of the victims into believing they were still pursuing the case.
The courts betrayed the accusers by hiding the extent of the crimes, and judges often sealed or redacted key documents so that no one would know who was involved. The FBI case file is not public.
The New York federal prosecutors arrested him again in July. He died while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
The 60-year-old was indicted a year after he was suspected of helping. She is accused of aiding the abuse of girls between 1994 and 2004.
Stein says that she met Maxwell in the fall of 1994 while she was a senior at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was working at Henri Bendel, a luxury women's retailer on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. One day, Stein was introduced to Maxwell by her.
She said that she hit it off immediately, and that she heard from other victims that she was very engaging.
Several other women have claimed that they were attending the Fashion Institute of Technology when they met Epstein and Maxwell. Ransome was one of them.
Stein, who was 4 feet 11 and weighed 80 pounds in 1994, looked younger than she was.
Stein delivered packages to some of the store's high-end clients.
I was told to bring the items to a hotel in Midtown Manhattan after I called the office to arrange the delivery. When I got to the hotel, I was told to take them to the bar, but not before she sat with Jeffrey Epstein.
She was invited to their room after they expressed interest in her fashion career.
Stein said it was the first time they had attacked him.
They were amazing. They made me feel like I was the only one in the universe.
She said she was abused for three years. She kept it a secret and blamed herself.
I kept these secrets for decades and couldn't tell anyone. I realized that it wasn't just me when he was arrested. You think these things happened to you.
Stein says that she met Ghislaine in the fall of 1994 when she was a senior at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She said that she was abused for three years by Jeffrey Epstein and that he introduced her to him. Stein was waiting as the jury continued deliberations at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in Manhattan.
I was horrified to find out how many more women have been victims of the culture of silence. Stein said that the emotional manipulation is not something that you can describe to someone and that it is a fear that you still have decades later.
They promised to connect her with the right people in the fashion industry, but it came with a price.
The aftermath of what happened for decades afterwards. Stein wrote to the U.S. attorney's victim coordinators on Nov. 23, almost a week before the trial. It is important for me to attend this trial. I would like to thank you for helping those of us who want to attend these proceedings in person.
The image of Ghislaine and Jeffrey was introduced at the trial.
She received a terse reply the next day.
Ms. Stein.
You have to see if you can get a seat in the overflow courtroom.
I can't help you because you aren't listed as a victim.
Wendy Olsen.
I think it is terrible. It is horrible. Stein said that anyone who is a victim of this crime needs to be treated with the same respect as the family.
Part of the seating in the courtroom is limited because of the social distance caused by the Pandemic. In the early days of the trial, three or more overflow courtrooms were set up to deal with the overflow crowd. In the first weeks of the case, it was chaotic and accusers attended less and less.
Stein and Ransome were not told what they had to do to get on the list. Stein wasn't approved to receive compensation from the victims' fund.
Stein enters the main courtroom quietly so as to not be noticed by court officers. She has been questioned about why she is there, and if she is on the list. She sits behind Isabel in the front row when she gets in.
After the jury began deliberations in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Ransome left the courthouse in New York. Ransome settled a lawsuit against the two men who brought her to them. She supports the accusers at the New York trial.
Everyone in the courtroom wears a mask so only her eyes are visible. Stein remembers how Maxwell uses her hand to push her hair out of her face when she turns around to make eye contact with her relatives.
It makes me look at her in the eyes and not fear her. Stein said that it has been worth it.
It has been difficult to hear the stories of how the accusers were groomed, manipulated and abused by the two men.
In the fall of 1994, Elizabeth Stein and a fellow graduate were outside of Radio City Music Hall. Stein said Ghislaine Maxwell introduced her to Jeffrey Epstein the same day she met him. She claims she was abused by them for three years.
She is concerned that jurors will not understand why the women continued to associate with them after they were allegedly attacked.
It is difficult because the jurors are only looking at the testimony and witnesses that were present. They have seen four women with similar stories. It sounds hard to believe. Who would believe it? That is the reason a lot of us didn't say anything. It was not easy to just get away.
