Ghislaine Maxwell's Lawyer Wants Her To Be Sent To The Prison Orange Is The New Black Is Based On
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Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers have requested for her to serve her sentence at the prison which inspired the Netflix series Orange Is The New Black.
Earlier today (28 June), Maxwell was handed a 20-year prison sentence for her role in the sex trafficking of minors. This comes six months after a jury found her guilty of luring in teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.
As well as her prison sentence, which will see her behind bars until she's 80, Maxwell was handed a $750,000 (£615,000) fine by sentencing judge Alison Nathan in the Manhattan Federal Court.
And now, Maxwell's lawyer has requested for her to serve her sentence in a prison that holds a strong connection to a hit incarceration series on Netflix.
After acknowledging the victim's pain in court, Bobbi C. Sternheim, a veteran lawyer in New York, requested that the disgraced socialite be sent to the BOP woman’s facility in Danbury, Connecticut.
They also requested for Maxwell to be enrolled in a female treatment program to address past familial and other trauma, The New York Times reports.
Well, it turns out that FCI Danbury - the prison Sternheim has requested for Maxwell - has a rather famous connection as it is one of the main inspirations behind Netflix's Orange Is The New Black.
Piper Kerman, who is now an American author, served 13 months of a 15 month sentence, which she began in FCI Danbury back in 2004.
She was jailed on charges of felonious money-laundering activities, which she was indicted for in 1998, reports Digital Spy.
Upon her release, she wrote a memoir of her time behind bars, titled: Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison. This later inspired the hit Netflix series, which premiered in 2013 and has since ran for seven seasons.
The fictional Litchfield prison in the series is based strongly upon Kerman's recollections from her time in FCI Danbury, so her experiences are something Maxwell could potentially be facing if the Federal Bureau of Prisons grant her lawyer's request.
Shortly before Maxwell's sentencing today, she addressed her victims directly in court to apologise for the pain they have experienced at the hands of Epstein and herself.
She said: "To you, all the victims that came to today inside the court and outside… I am sorry for the pain you have experienced.
"I hope my sentence… brings you closure… peace and finality. To help you put those experiences in a place that helps you move forward."
She then added that the knowledge of the effects of her crimes 'tortures me every single day', and that she hoped the sentence 'brings this terrible chapter to an end and… help you travel from darkness into the light'.
"It is hard for me to address the court after listening to the pain and anguish expressed in the statements made here.
"The terrible impact on the lives of so many women is difficult to hear and even more difficult to absorb, both in its scale and in its extent.
"I want to acknowledge their suffering. I empathise deeply with all of the victims in this case."
She concluded with: "I know my association with Epstein will follow and and forever stain me. It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein."
