Ghislaine Maxwell, brother ordered to pay Denver lawyers nearly $1M

 

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former British socialite who is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking, and her brother have been ordered to pay $987,000 to a Denver law firm.

Denver District Court Judge Bruce Jones issued the judgment against Ghislaine and Kevin Maxwell on Wednesday, after they ignored a lawsuit filed against them 15 weeks ago.

The two siblings and Ghislaine Maxwell's husband, Scott Borgerson, were sued Aug. 22 by the law firm Haddon, Morgan and Foreman. Lawyers from the local firm represented Ghislaine Maxwell in several civil cases and at her lengthy criminal trial last year.

According to the lawsuit, Kevin Maxwell repeatedly agreed to pay the law firm representing his sister and repeatedly failed to do so. Borgerson, meanwhile, moved his wife's assets around to stop the law firm from collecting the money it was owed, the lawsuit alleged.

“In total, HMF spent a total of 5,374 hours defending the (criminal) case,” HMF attorney Christopher Montville wrote in a November court filing. “$894,948 remains unpaid despite repeated assurances by both Kevin Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell and others.”

Borgerson later came to an agreement with the firm and was dismissed from the lawsuit. But the Maxwells refused to respond, leading to Wednesday's default judgment.

Jones determined the Maxwells owe a principal amount of $895,000, plus $76,000 in interest and nearly $16,000 in other fees and costs. A 12-percent interest will accrue annually on the nearly $1 million total until it is paid, according to the judge's order.

After a months-long federal trial, Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, was convicted of five sex trafficking counts at the end of 2021 and sentenced in late June to two decades in prison.

Maxwell was found to have helped Jeffrey Epstein, a financier, sexually abuse girls as young as 14 in the 1990s and 2000s. Epstein committed suicide before standing trial.