GHISLAINE Maxwell will be “fully cooperating” with the FBI in their investigation – and some of the world’s most powerful people, including Prince Andrew, will be “very worried,” her Epstein’s former mentor has claimed.
Steven Hoffenberg was Epstein’s first-ever employer after they criminally masterminded together one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history in the late eighties and early nineties, which resulted in Hoffenberg being sent down for 20 years.
The 75-year-old was also close to the Maxwell family and says that her arrest will have been set up by the FBI, who would have known exactly where she’d been hiding out since Epstein’s suicide last August.
“They knew where she was all the time [in New Hampshire]. It was a question if America was going to take the case or not, now America has made up its mind to take the case,” Hoffenberg told the Sun.
“Andrew handled it poorly, very poorly, he should have spoken to them through his lawyers, and given them some guidance.
“He should have given them something.
“She’s going to cooperate and be very important. Andrew is definitely, definitely concerned, and there’s a lot of people very worried, a lot of powerful people been named [in the scandal], and she knows everything.
“She’ll totally cooperate.”
The Prince has strenuously denied all allegations brought against him.
In a statement last year the Palace said: “Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue.”
Prince Andrew said: “At no stage during the limited time I spent with [Epstein] did I see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction.”
Later that day Maxwell, 58, faced a New York City judge remotely after prosecutors accused her of building a rapport with girls as young as 14 before allegedly helping Epstein to sexually exploit them.
Hoffenberg, who’s turned his life around and says he’s working with Epstein’s victims, moved in the same social circles as Ghislaine Maxwell, and says he’s in regular contact with her spokesperson.
While Maxwell is cooperating with the FBI, she was ultimately expecting to avoid arrest.
Now that it looks unlikely she’ll ever be free again, Hoffenberg wouldn’t be surprised if she also decided to take her own life to evade justice.
Hoffenberg, a former owner of the New York Post, says: “Yes, very much so [could she commit suicide], because the way she thinks, she takes everything deeply, down in her emotional capacity, and this is an emotional tragedy.
“She was convinced she wasn’t getting arrested, I speak to her spokesperson all the time.
“She’s definitely someone who I understand quite well, I’m able to articulate how she feels right now, the tragedy she’s involved in now is horrible.
“If they keep her in prison, she’ll crack in two seconds. She’s not able to take that sort of cruel punishment, prison is too tough and hard, she’ll have to be in solitary confinement, and she’ll snap.”
Hoffenberg knows exactly how tough jail life can be. Epstein came to him broke and together they made hundreds of millions working on a Ponzi scheme to siphon off company funds instead of paying investors.
After the FBI bust in 1995, Hoffenberg pleaded guilty to mail fraud, tax evasion and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to 20 years – serving 18 – while Epstein escaped punishment.
He spent three and a half of those years in solitary and says no way is prison life for Maxwell, adding: “I know the confinement and I know how hard it is for people to adjust, it’s too painful, very psychologically painful, and she’ll never be able to take it.
“I was in solitary for three and a half years because I did legal work for the inmates against the prison officials. It was retaliation.
“It’s very painful, the suffering is enormous, I believe she’s already agreed to cooperate, which means her incarceration would be much more comfortable.”
Hoffenberg believes the arrest is important to President Donald Trump with just four months to the election and he’s suffering in the polls.
Trump and Epstein are known business associates – and Hoffenberg reckons that the media haven’t even scratched the surface on that story yet.
He adds: “They needed to arrest her and open up the case otherwise it would be an election issue here in America.
“Trump and Epstein are linked, there’s a lot that can be published. They [the media] don’t know the Epstein story, it’s a big mystery in America, I say this with knowledge, I’m the only eyewitness talking to the media.
“Trump is another part of the story, billions of dollars, but we’ll see.”
