“Facts are not persuasive; stories are,” the famed American trial lawyer Gerry Spence – who claims never to have not lost a criminal case in his 50 years practising – once said when asked the secret to winning over a jury.
If Mr Spence is right, Ghislaine Maxwell may well be in trouble.
After an extraordinarily short opening statement and a shaky first few days, the prosecution seemed to turn it around with blockbuster testimony from three of the British socialite’s alleged victims this past week. Accuser after accuser detailed a pattern of sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his “partner-in-crime” Ms Maxwell.
