She once counted on royalty and Presidents for letters of recommendation, but now Ghislaine Maxwell is resorting to alleged cocaine traffickers for a character reference.
The disgraced socialite has sent a letter of support to the judge from a prisoner accused of masterminding a $2.8million drug deal.
The handwritten note from Tatiana Venegas states that Maxwell is a ‘genuine and kind’ person who is helping other prisoners to learn English and teaching them yoga.
Venegas says that she wants people to know there are ‘positive opinions, some of among inmates in the unit’ rather than the negative reputation Maxwell has.
Like Maxwell, Venegas is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Venegas, 31, is accused of conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine by prosecutors in New York.
Maxwell, 60, will be sentenced for up to 55 years on Tuesday for recruiting and trafficking underage girls to Jeffrey Epstein, the late pedophile financier.
This comes as Maxwell’s lawyers said she has been placed on suicide watch and asked for the sentencing to be postponed.
Venegas’ lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented Joaquin Guzman, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, told DailyMail.com: ‘Ms. Maxwell is well-liked by the MDC inmates due to her kindness as well as her generosity with her time. In addition, the inmates have real empathy for her as they’ve witnessed how unfairly she’s been treated by the administrators in the facility.’
The note comes after Maxwell filed letters of support from her siblings and society figures such as a magazine editor who went to school with her.
The note from Venegas reads: ‘When Ghislaine Maxwell first arrived in the unit, she introduced herself to everyone with a handshake. ”Hi I’m Maxwell.” She says with a smile, genuine and kind. It took all of us by surprise.
‘Within one week of Maxwell arriving she had volunteered to teach ESL (English as a foreign language), teach yoga and help women with their GED. I believe it’s important to know that there are also positive opinions, some of which are among inmates in the unit. I believe that it is also good to point out the good in people.’
That Maxwell is relying on such a person to argue for her shows how far she has fallen since her conviction last December.
Maxwell was once friends with Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton and gave a speech at the United Nations about saving the world’s oceans.
Venegas, according to prosecutors, is an entirely different sort of individual.
As described in the indictment against her, between May 2020 and July 2020, Venegas was part of a conspiracy to distribute and possess controlled substances.
According to a statement in court documents from Michael Dealmeida, a detective and task force officer at the Border Enforcement Security task force of the New York Police Department, Venegas phoned an undercover cop asking if they could supply 300kg of cocaine.
